The art of blogging...

It's a funny thing this world of blogging. Henry was saying the other day in the office that he was surprised more people didn't read his blog. I was saying the exact opposite. I'm always pleasantly surprised, and flattered, when I hear from or meet someone who's reading what I'm sending out into cyberspace. I sometimes forget anyone is reading it at all!

On the subject of blogging, it's a rough world out there at the moment with fake blogs (or 'flogs') being used to dupe consumers, as Henry mentions in his latest blog. And now it's happening in the b2b world. Some blogs have sprung up in the past year discussing SEO tactics, supposedly from an unbiased point of view. It's pretty obvious to us that they're being written by one of either our or our clients' competitors, and to add fuel to the fire we're now seeing a few people using these blogs as ammunition in various arguments for or against certain SEO techniques. All the time purporting to be 'unbiased' in their views.

I think this kind of activity is spineless. At Tamar we write our blogs openly. We're very happy to put our name to everything we write online, and to defend our views vigorously. You have to ask yourself why these so-called 'bloggers' are not prepared to do the same? And since they go to great lengths to keep their identity secret they can't be challenged on any of their views or indeed the truth of a lot of what they write…

My view is these bloggers should stand up and be counted and put their names to their views so we can all see their agendas openly. And I for one am very happy to expand on or defend this, or any other of my views, in any open public forum. So put up or shut up.

no more Chinese walls

I was delighted to see today that the BBC website is now accessible from China. It was one of the frustrations on my last trip to Shangahi that it had been blocked by the Chinese government and all the more so because I patiently kept re-trying to access it convinced that there was a connection error until the penny dropped.

Of course, being China, the government have never officially confirmed that it was blocked in the first place, or indeed that it has been unblocked now, but it's been over a decade since the Chinese people could access the BBC News website from China. (Interestingly I found no such problem with CNN when I was there).

Of course the government have promised to make reporting easier for foreign journalists in the run-up to the Beijing games and this is clearly the first step. For businesses like Tamar who are investing in China and its huge online population this can only be good news. I specifically wanted our China office to be up and running in good time for the Olympics as I felt it would inevitably open up China to the rest of the world. This step looks small but I feel it's significant and I'm waiting for further developments with interest...

something kinda ooooooh...

I've just got my paws on the MacBook Air and it's gorgeous. Even thinner than my iPhone - check out the side-by-side comparison below.

The reviews all  say  much the same thing: the MacBook Air is really, really thin, and a great machine so long as you don't need the connectivity/ports it doesn't have. I was also staggered by its lightness, having hauled around various laptops for the last 4-5 years and knackered my shoulder as a result this one really can slip in a bag without you even noticing it's in there. I've got copies of Vogue that are heavier!

But quite apart from anything else it just looks lush. A bit like a piece of the Starship Enterprise fell to Earth, sleek, sexy and quite unfeasibly thin. (If you think I'm going on about this, get your hands on one and you'll see what I mean. Even after seeing the TV ads there's still an intake of breath when you turn it sideways and see it disappearing off into its 4mm thinest point).

This puts me into a bit of a quandry. I've already got two laptops..a Sony Vaio and a MacBook Pro and I bought the Air orginally for the office but it's making me feel seriously covetous...I can't really have 3 laptops can I?

Oh go on then, rude not to... ;-)

me and Steve Wozniak...

It's been a while since I updated this blog and if you want to know the truth it's because I knew I was about to commit sacrilege. You see I have to admit that I am disappointed with the iPhone. There, said it.

Like Steve Wozniak who admitted the same in his blog a few days ago, I waited in line to get my iPhone and seized on it with eager hands. And, like the obsessive that I am, I was utterly besotted with it for the first few months. I used to get it out of my bag and double tap the screen on demand to any passing stranger while cooing about its general gorgeousness.

But like any love-affair the initial honeymoon period wore off and I can now see the iPhone for what it is. A neat piece of technology but a failure as a phone.

Wozniak's main gripe is that it's not 3G. For me it's more fundamental. I always knew the keyboard would frustrate me as it's impossible to type in one hand (my one-thumbed texting and typing speeds are legendary) but I thought I would get used to it. I haven't and I'm still using my BlackBerry for texting and emailing. I never changed my main mobile number over and now pretty much use the iPhone as a toy. Oh yes and the screen cracked not that long ago as it's not robust enough to be shoved in a bag or pocket like a 'normal' phone without some wear and tear. I don't want a phone that needs to be handled with kid gloves.

So, rather like those brilliant Carphone Warehouse adverts with the phones abandoned by their 'owners' because they're not sexy enough, my iPhone sits neglected and sorry on my desk. Not because it's not sexy, it still is, but because it's not practical. It's the difference between a love affair and a marriage. For a fling superficial sexiness is plenty. For a long-term commitment you need reliability and a bit of practicality. So, wild affair over (and hey, it was fun ;-) ) I now use the iPhone just for music and web browsing but it's not my phone. That honour still goes to my lifetime partner the BlackBerry. What it lacks in sex appeal it makes up for in reliability and practical application.

Sorry Apple, but I agree with Steve and I suspect you've lost more than one fan on this one.

the blog in which I discover what search engines are for...

Let's re-cap shall we? I am the CEO of a search-led digital business. I have spent the past 13 years making a living out of search engines and, more recently, social media. So why do I find myself in the last week astounded and a bit perturbed by how well it all works....?

To backtrack a bit, my recent TV appearances prompted a plethora of strange individuals to contact me online. The first night the programme aired I was swamped with new facebook friend requests. Being the polite person that I am I dutifully clicked through to all the profiles trying to work out if I'd been to school with them, met them on holiday, had an ill-starred tryst that I'd wiped from my memory etc etc. After the 40th-odd request in an hour I'd given up and ignored them all. I'm old fashioned and have a rule that I actually have to have *met* my facebook friends - sorry :(

So when the programme was repeated I thought I knew what to expect. And was rather spooked to now get emails sent directly to me at work. And these ones were particularly startling in the level of information the senders had about me. University, past jobs, where I'd just travelled to, where I lived (not the street name but pretty close), my recent divorce, the number of children I have.

It was only when I got one email in particular (just a tip, probably best not to begin with "I'm not a crazed stalker but I've just done a Google search on you" - because it made me think that, yes, he was a stalker) that the penny dropped. All of this information about me is in the public domain and freely available via a simple Google search on my name. And because I've got an unusual name and am a member of several social networking sites, write this blog and have had press coverage, it's easy to find rather a lot of it. So any half-decent stalker can piece together a pretty good picture of my life and work out things that I'd really rather not have strangers with stalking tendencies know.

But as the redoubtable Ann Widdecombe said on the same programme I appeared on "it's not like they broke into your house and raided your desk. You put all the information out there". Excellent point and I agreed with it when she made it. I was even accused of being a 'stalker' myself recently when I looked at someone's facebook page and saw some things there they'd rather I hadn't. And I indignantly made the same point, that they were publically available!

But having the tables turned was a strange experience I must say. I can't really complain when it's all information I've put out there can I? (Though I'm embarrassed to admit I went to one site and took out the dates I'd attended university as my gentleman stalker worked out my age - oh vanity!). I'm just not entirely sure I want everyone I ever come into contact with in any context in my life to be able to find out so much about me so easily.

I've written before about how this privacy obsession is probably a generational thing. The younger members of my team seem to have no issues with everyone they've ever met being their facebook or MySpace friends and having open access to the minutiae of their lives. Whereas I, and everyone else I know over the ages of (cough) 30 agonise endlessly about the various privacy settings available on their social media sites. When do you accept a friend in the first place and then move them from privacy setting 'limited' to 'full'. After the second date? When you've slept with them? After a mini-break together? And what happens when you split up? De-friend them or merely demote them silently to 'limited profile'? And if you get back together again, do you have to go through the whole cycle all over again?? It's a minefield ;)

I recently decided I was being far too anal about all of this for my own good and relaxed the Alcatraz-like facebook privacy settings on my profile so members of the networks I belong to could at least see some of it. As the site itself says, this is what social media is all about. And the very next week I attracted my stalker who used some of this information together with the Google search to build up such an uncanily complete picture of me.

So, what have I learned?

1. Search engines work superbly well at gathering all the relevant information about you online and helpfully making it available to anyone who searches. Hurrah, a good business to be in then!

2. A huge amount of this information is stuff you've provided/published yourself so you can hardly cry 'foul' when it's found.

3. Privacy in its old-fashioned definition is just that, old-fashioned. We're in a truly connected world with its emphasis on information freely available and it's impossible to avoid being sucked into it.

4. Sadly, it's no longer possible to be an International Man (or Woman) of Mystery. If you're lying about your age try not to helpfully fill in the correct years you attended university on networking sites so any idiot can work it out for themselves....

Here endeth the lesson.