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It's an interesting point, word press is easy to set up and use if you are familiar with it. There are plenty of single install set ups, and most hosting providers can set it up for you, but it can still be tricky and confusing.

But I suppose it's down to technical ability and time. As John's done his own site, I'm inclined to agree a wordpress site would be an inexpensive solution that would yield a much better online presence.

Or for the sake of a few hundred quid, get someone else to knock one out for you, leaving you to concentrate on growing the business 

We have a large coach operator near us, they have been going since 1906, have a large modern fleet, have council contracts and provide local bus routes, as well as a successful holiday excursion business. Each coach must be worth a fortune (or lease costs), yet the website is absolutely awful. Spending a few grand on a decent web presence would be loose change, but I guess for them, or their (what appear to be) primarily more elderly clients, they don't really need much of a web presence. But they are very active on social media with impressive engagement levels.

Maybe it shows for some businesses a website isn't necessarily the primary marketing tool. Maybe that's an option John, get a very simple 1 page brochure site, but then concentrate on your social media channels?

Sad state of affairs, but does show that in the end it's just all marketing and consumption. Used to be tomorrows chip wrappers, now maybe it's tomorrows link bait

Not seen an intro from you, so welcome aboard 

Originally Posted by Garde

“I dont understand how he can lose control of his own business 

USA Laws !! Imagine us dictating our rules to a USA company - wonder what they would say to us?”

It's bizarre, it seems to be a particularly related to airlines:

The Federal Aviation Act prohibits foreigners from owning more than 25 percent of an American airline. 

Took that line from an interesting article, although dated 2007, it's an enlightening read.

The stupid law that prevents foreigners from buying U.S. airlines.

...sometimes misplaced hostility to foreigners, national-security paranoia, and plain-old protectionism can damage American consumers and leave domestic industries hidebound. That's exactly what is happening in the airline sector, where an incredibly foolish law has barred foreigners from taking over American air carriers.

Saw a Tesla for the first time up close the other week. It was interesting to see how much room there was with no transmission tunnel and gearbox. The centre console was dominated by a huge TV display which looked really odd, but overall a nice looking car.

Said it many times, as soon as we get an electric 4x4 that can do 400 miles on a charge and is a comparable price, with comparable power, I'll happily change over. Make it self driving, even better 

I don't know if it's because the wife has signed up to an M&S special offer, or we are just really lucky, but we seem to be on Johnny spammers telephone hit list.

Today's was the standard low quality phone call and Asian voice, (sorry not a stereotype but a sad fact, most of these calls originate from India). 

Apparently my computer is running slow, which BT happen to know, and dispatched super techies to the rescue. After reverting to a variety of accents, none of which seemed to put my master scammer off, I settled on doddery old fart fumbling around, leaving him on hold for a bit while I did some work.

After he realised I was incapable of working my way round a computer to give him the information he needed (and access to log on and send me a virus) he eventually sent me to fastheal.net a ropey and dated looking "security" website.

I particularly like the 2013 xmas message 

Now for what they want is for you to select the "connect to technician 3" which will download a spyware application called soft3.exe.

Obviously at this stage I couldn't keep the ruse up any longer so started really taking the mickey to which I seem to have got under his skin, as instead of the usual putting the phone down, I initially got a full denial he was a scammer, and insisted he was working for BT. Then he wanted proof to know how I knew he was a scammer  Really...

It finally ended with lots of profanity and him telling me I needed to shove my finger somewhere? Must be a local custom  But was a good distraction and a bit of fun.

BT will never phone you to tell your computer is running slow

Likewise, your computer will never contact BT to tell them its running slow. Plus BT have a much better phone system, let alone some mickey mouse virus ridden scam website.

On a serious note, for scammers to be this bad, there really must be a lot of gullible or vulnerable people getting targeted and ripped off. It was clearly a call centre and no doubt they are making call after call.

I wish there was more we could do to stop these vermin, but these parasites seem to be a product of the modern age.

If you know vulnerable or elderly folk, just make sure they understand about these scams and get them to put the phone down straight away. 

There is a company local to us, tmwi that puts on some superb digital marketing events with some great speakers.

I went to their latest event at the Birmingham NEC last Friday and speakers included Dave Oldacre, the SEO Manager for Sky Bet talking about SEO across an organisation. Gareth Phillips from Audience Store talking about programmatic and automated advertising, Kirsty Hulse from Linkdex with a great presentation about content and customer experience, also from Linkdex, a fascinating presentation by Jono Alderson talking about the value of frameworks within your business. To be honest I'm definitely going to rip off part of his presentation for one I'm doing myself later this month 

Deepcrawl also gave a talk again this year, this time it was David Brown talking about crawl optimisation and focusing on technical SEO which I love, but unfortunately most people glaze over...

Presentations from tmwi CEO Chris Phillips and Digital Director Gary Taylor were also very good.

It would be nice to see some older people there as I seem to be in a room of hair, guess which one is me 

If you are based around the Midlands, or fancy a day out to the centre of the country, then I'd recommend registering for the next event. It's free, a good day out, great networking opportunity, and a good chance to talk to some marketeers that really know their stuff.

The event co-ordinator is exMLS and now tmwi SEO guru Kev Wiles.

If you want to go to the next event, or hear when it is, then visit the TMWI page, or get in touch with Kev.

I will say, for a digital agency, their choice of fonts and colours are questionable, it's not the easiest page to read  Even the experts can't get it right all the time 

John Seale <sealej2@hotmail.com>

Subject: Help

Hello,

I just arrived in Athens, Greece I need your help, I'm in a really deep mess. Can I get a loan of (1,000 GBP) ? You'll have it as soon as I get back home. I lost my bank card, I'll appreciate what you can give if not all. It's really urgent, please get back to me asap, Money Gram is the only way i can receive the money here.

Below are the details needed via Money Gram Transfer

Receiver's Name: John Seale
Location: 18, Heracleous St. Kifissia 145 64
City, Athens,Greece

As soon as you have it done get back to me with the reference code.

Best Regards,
John Seale

John, thanks for the email. I can get you a free boat trip to Turkey if that helps, then Turkish Airlines is holding an Arab Spring promotion 

At least we finally we now know where plumbers keep all their cash 

I'm not sure why there is such an outcry, it's not like tax havens or dodgy dealing is new? It's well known the country loses billions of £ in tax from safe havens. But now it's all public and everyone is getting named and shamed, the whole world is jumping on the band wagon to condemn it and sort it out  As well as no doubt covering a few tracks and breaking a few old friendships...

Be great if we had the same international enthusiasm to sort out ISIS or the refugee crisis rather than worry about who's been cooking the books or skimming the tills.

I see Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable are advocating direct rule fro Crown protectorates if they can't get their act together, could be interesting. We could end up with a new mini empire of great tourist destinations 

An emotive question in the current climate, particularly with the number of jobs involved, and the recent closure of the Teeside plant.

But if a buyer isn't found, should the UK Government step in and nationalise or heavily subsidise the industry, safeguarding jobs and future steel production, but at the expense of the tax payer?

After all, it was done for the banks, so why not the steel industry?

Or has steel manufacturing had it's day in the UK, like it's old British Steel name and logo, with elderly plants in need of refurbishment and investment, that are unable to compete with low cost overseas imports.

If the only viable market for UK steel is the home subsidised market because we can't compete on exports, what is the business model for the future? Or maybe we play the long game when steel prices and demand improve and the industry becomes viable and healthy again.

It seems a tragedy for our steel plants to go the way of the coal mines, but is it inevitable? At what cost are we prepared to keep them?

What do you think?

Saw on the BBC that Virgin America was getting swallowed up by Alaska Airlines, which I thought was surprising, so did a quick google to get some more info.

So some news sites are reporting it's Virgin America, and some that's it's Virgin Atlantic! The BBC reports it as a $4bn deal, while fortune declare it as a $2bn deal.

Who needs facts and accuracy, it's only news

I was curious why our Richard was flogging it off, and it turns out he had little say due to US laws.

"I would be lying if I didn’t admit sadness that our wonderful airline is merging with another. Because I'm not American, the US Department of Transportation stipulated I  take some of my shares in Virgin America as non-voting shares, reducing my influence over any takeover. So there was sadly nothing I could do to stop it."

www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-america

Seems it is $4bn according to the Virgin web site, so at least Richards pension pot will be ok