Steve.Richardson - Forum Profile

Child Benefit changes - fair or unfair? 9th January 2013 10:47 AM

“As the people that govern us seem to believe that it is far better for a child to be brought up within a married family lifestyle...”

I guess I'm old fashioned and like the idea of kids been brought up in a married environment, but most of may mates are now on their first divorce, and most of the kids seem to cope all right. Whether you should have tax breaks favouring a particular kind of living arrangement doesn't seem fair, but as long as I don't get divorced, then I'm happy with any marriage tax break

Watched newsnight last night and they were talking about the old Tax Credits scheme, which ended up with 9 out of 10 families with kids receiving some form of tax credit! I think this underlines the bloated state of the welfare state.

What started as a superb and noble idea, lifting people out of poverty and protecting the vulnerable has morphed into a massively expensive hand out system for the majority of the population. Within 2 or 3 generations we've gone from an independent self sufficient family culture, to a state dependant culture with demands and minimum expectations. I wonder if this has any bearing on perceived breakdown of traditional values, respect etc.

I hope after all this period of churn, protests, arguments and debates, we end up with a streamlined affordable benefit system, that protects those in genuine need, but starts to give the next generation a sense of independence, responsibility and finally breaks the cycle of dependence.

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20 Billion App store downloads in 2012 8th January 2013 1:01 PM

Wow, this is amazing...

“Apple

Online Spending up 17.8% and 14% in the UK and US 8th January 2013 12:47 PM

Interesting to see some of the numbers coming in for Online Shopping over the festive period. As expected, online marketing is getting more important.

The US saw online spending up 14% but not as much as originally forecast, while the UK shot up by 17.8%.

But overall sales appear to have been disappointing with a slump in traditional retail and high street sales.

“Many retailers have invested a lot in making their websites easier to use across devices and also increasing confidence in their online security," Helen Dickinson said.

"For the more established retailers, it seems that much of the growth is now coming from online orders, while shop sales are stagnant at best."

However, online retail was still only a small proportion of total sales, accounting for a little over 10%.

BBC News - Online shopping bolsters Christmas sales”

So the message is getting louder and louder. If you sell or offer online services, this market is growing, especially the mobile market. I think free basic and amateur websites will now start to suffer as commercial websites become slicker, more professional and more importantly, mobile friendly!

I'll bet mobile devices will account for 40% of online traffic by Dec 2013, which is a lot of lost customers if you don't have a slick mobile solution!

Anyone have any good xmas results? Maybe up on the year before, or has it been the same as last year or worse?

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Child Benefit changes - fair or unfair? 8th January 2013 10:09 AM

I also think it's unfair it's been targeted at individuals, and not household incomes. You could have a single parent juggling a career and kids who just makes the threshold, versus a couple who earn more combined, but are entitled.

Totally agree that the definition of poverty is a bit skewed in this country, especially after seeing slums and genuine poverty in various countries.

In this age of recycling and worrying about waste, it's a shame we can't co-ordinate resources to allocate surplus food that will go to waste, from say Supermarkets, and that goes to people in need. Or clothes that are end of line and destined for some discount shop where no one will make any profit. This in my mind is what child benefit or a poverty benefit should be for. Even just giving food or clothing vouchers, not just handing over cash which can be spent on anything.

But it's a step in the right direction, like the scrapping of the non means tested healthy eating bonus for all pregnant mothers, and countless other non means tested and ill thought out benefits that GB Ltd can't afford and shouldn't have to provide

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Child Benefit changes - fair or unfair? 7th January 2013 12:57 PM

Well the New Year in the UK has started with some controversy! Tackling one of the biggest Social Welfare drains, child benefit.

The Government reckons it will save

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First Page CPC On Adwords 7th January 2013 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by eastvantage

“...if the first page cpc has lower cost, does it mean the keyword is not relevant to my campaign? And that I should remove it? Any advice please.”

lower cost cpc (cost per click) is what you are aiming for! If it's not relevant to your campaign, it will either be a very high CPC (unless in a very competitive market) or you will have no clicks at all.

The lower the CPC the better, but the key is conversions. Ensure a keyword is generating conversions for the right cost, (ie lower cpc).

Me personally I monitor and tune keywords over 30, 60 and 90 days. If I can't get them generating a minimum conversion rate of 10%, then I pause them. Any keyword not generating conversions but getting clicks is simply wasting money, regardless of CPC.

School Holidays 7th January 2013 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Roxy

“I come from a place where school holidays are just the same as regular school days. Kids have to attend compulsory tuition during the holidays.”

So the schools close but the kids have to have compulsory tuition? How does that work??

Originally Posted by Dreamraven

“Then how can they be called holidays?