Martyn Walker

The power of crowds and communities

Martyn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:47:39 +0000

Corporations use advertising to persuade us to buy their products. They do not force us to buy their products but is it ok for them to give us the impression their product is the best or only one to buy? That may seem like a ridiculous question but if you go to court and lie [...]

Link Scanners Make PPC but No Adsense

Martyn — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:19:44 +0000

New tools from security firms could be costing you dearly. I observed something “that could not happen” according to the makers of a Link Scanner and Resident Shield packaged with my anti virus product. It started when I made my first search in Google after the installation. Curiously a new spinny icon appeared beside [...]

Ships passing in the night

Martyn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:56:44 +0000

The Pale of Water Inc.,Jack and Jill run an ad agency called The Pale of Water inc, a succesful business now in it’s second decade of operation. They were both A+ students who sailed through ivy league education and started their business with venture capital funding at age 23. They specialise in promoting Interior [...]

In yer facebook

Martyn — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:45:19 +0000

Arrrgggh! What has happened to facebook? I’m a fan I really am but this week all I get is the same flashing advertising over and over and over…. Must have done something bad in a past life. And so Social Media applications embrace the last chance business model of [...]

Is the Spider your Decider?

Martyn — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:35:52 +0000

According to Wikipedia: Research is a human activity based on intellectual investigation and aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising human knowledge on different aspects of the world. Google cannot be an expert in every subject, rather the subject needs to be an expert in Google. How much of the research in Google is manipulated by the [...]

The Secret To Building An Online Community

Martyn — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:33:47 +0000

If your website gets 100,000 unique visitors each day then someone somewhere will pay you something worthwhile for exposure to your community. So given that a secret to an online income is owning a community then how do you build one from scratch? Is it Blogging? It’s no secret that bloggers attract huge communities of readers. [...]

Going Sue Silly

Martyn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:38:02 +0000

As a software developer and owner of IPR you might think I would not be happy if my code and ideas were stolen and used for profit. You’d be right. But what if someone writes their own code that improves my original idea? Why should I have any claim over that? Progress depends on people taking [...]

Blogging Aint Always So Cool

Martyn — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:21:32 +0000

How did I find myself in this mess? My blog was only two weeks old and I could no longer post to it, not through lack of trying but dreaded MySQL and File Permission errors. And I own the hosting company that hosts it! Just like a customer I got in contact with support and had [...]

Are The French Worth Listening Too?

Martyn — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:52:18 +0000

I thought Ublog was a late comer to blogging only “making it” because of it’s French origins which meant slower adoption of new ideas from the English speaking world. Well, A country that insists on calling a computer an “ordinateur” to emphasise Frenchness is bound to get stereotyped. “So even though he’s French, his advice, [...]

UK Sends More Text Than Google Searches Worldwide!

Martyn — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:05:20 +0000

Even after a recent surge of worldwide searches to 200 million a day Google lags behind SMS text messages according to 160characters.org the leading news agency promoting the SMS texting industry. SMS is celebrating it’s 15th Birthday amid phenomenal growth that looks unlikely to slow down at all. It may not have been “Watson, come [...]