Category: Technology

Getting a Google Nexus 7 8GB in the UK

Post author By Me
Post date 19 August, 2012

Got an iPad earlier this year from the US and boy have I missed out on owning a tablet device. I don’t know know what I did before I had one.

While its not an essential device I do find its a bloody amazing piece of kit. Though it is great and works well, it certainly hasn’t made me an Apple fanboy in any way. It’s good but not frenzy worthy.

At the moment taking on my daily commute across London is a bit unnerving. Partly it’s because. It’s a tad on the heavy side, but mainly it’s because its not exactly discreet. I keep feeling like I’m showing off by even taking it out on the tube, and also worried at the same time that some chav might be eyeing it up for a grab and run as I get off the train!

With Google’s entry into the small tablet market with their Nexus 7 tablet, I thought “Great, a tablet worthy of the commute that I can use Amazon’s Kindle app on for books and also do other stuff”. 8GB and 16GB models but I don’t need space as its not my main device so 8GB is fine. Problem is there’s so many problem cases with ordering from Google’s Play Store that I don’t want to risk the hassle.

Firstly its taken me 2 weeks to properly decide to buy it, with the Microsoft Surface and rumoured Apple iPad mini on the way in a matt of weeks so I’m led to believe. To be honest, it depends on which hour of which day you speak to me at the moment. Sometimes I’m going to wait and see what the marketplace is like in 2-4 weeks, sometimes I’m getting the Nexus immediately. But whenever those “immediately” times arrive, I can’t source the 8GB model in any UK high street store, not even on any of those stores websites!

Come on Google, help us out. And by us I mean those customers that are willing and waiting to buy. We won’t be hanging around forever!

Tags Nexus 7 8gb

Banter Technology

Affiliate Marketing Presentation – A Not-So-Nice Experience

Post author By Me
Post date 15 June, 2012

Only a couple of months ago, I was at an Internet Marketing networking event in London which was quite interesting. The speaker has done quite a bit of affiliate marketing and was openly sharing his experiences and how he did it.

A great, honest, presentation and talk which went into more depth than I was expecting. During the presentation, someone in the audience asked if these slides would be sent out afterwards, because if they were going to be sent, then he’d just listen and not try and take notes at the same time.

The speaker said “Yes, sure” and on the back of this, even I stopped taking notes but listened intently.

You can guess what’s coming right? Yep, no slides afterwards.
Someone asked him on one of his new forums, but got quite a distasteful response back saying this was on a request-by-request basis for premium members of that forum!

Now that was a surprise! From someone who talks about networking and building lasting relationships, he completely flipped on his word and was effectively demanding a subscription to his forum in return for the slide pack he had already promised. Sure, he’s entitled to change his mind, but the way it was done hasn’t exactly left me (and probably many others) with any trust or confidence in his other service offerings.

I know I’ve not named this individual here, and I don’t intend to. Call it a personal preference, call it anything you want, but even with all that said, the issue is quite minor and in my opinion, doesn’t warrant a public naming and shaming!

Tags affiliate marketing, commitment, following-up

Technology

Is Google+ any good?

For the best part of four weeks, there seems to be a new craze in the online space – no Apple are not launching a new product, but Google have made yet another attempt at cracking social media and having a worthwhile competitor to Facebook and Twitter.

Well after Wave, Buzz and other ventures it seems Google Plus might be the one to finally give Google a real Facebook-beater, or more likely a Google-challenger.

In the first 2 weeks, Google + amassed close to 20 million users which is staggering. I’ve seen a graph (see below) that show Facebook and Twitter taking well over 2 years to reach half that. And this is all without providing an option for businesses to join and without promoting the still BETA service through its other channels, namely Youtube and Google.com.

That said, I very much doubt Facebook is going to go away anytime this decade. Saying that might be tempting fate as a decade is a long time in the world of the web – however with half a billion people on Facebook and growing, it has the kind of critical mass that MySpace may have never even have dreamt of.

Anyway, this is about Google+ and if it is any good. Well after playing around on it for most of July, I can tell you a thing or two. As I’ve already said, its Google’s best effort by far in social networks. Its very well thought out, is nice, simple and clean to use and just works. Its like they’ve taken the best bits of Facebook and Twitter, made it look better and meshed them together. Privacy settings are a breeze, unlike with Facebook – its simple and clear-cut.

G+ has this concept of ‘circles’ into which you put your various connections. This is great because now you can communicate certain information to certain people much more easily. You may want to put up photos of last Saturday night to show your friends, but keep those dodgy ones from your professional and work colleagues. It takes 2-3 clicks to get that sorted out.

Then there’s Hangout – a fab video chat service. It allows multiple users to join the same ‘hangout’ and see each other. I’ve only used the once so far and loved the simplicity of it all.

As its still invite-only, there is a certain emptiness feeling you get when on G+ because there’s simply not as much relevant stuff going on as you get in Facebook. But for me this is just a timing thing. Once it opens up and the number of users grow, there will be a shifting of focus and that’s when we’ll know that G+ has truly arrived. Just don’t expect a mass exodus from its Facebook rival!

FriendFeed vs Twitter vs Facebook vs Google+ (chris.pirillo.com)
Some thoughts on Google+ (businessinsider.com)
Google Plus Benefits (buzzoodle.com)
Google+ — Information Overload? (fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com)

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