A Mecca for talent and a lynch pin in the European tech scene, it may be, but the sky-high rents of London put many companies off. All that's about to change with the introduction of an innovative work space for tech start ups.
TechHub (@TechHub onTwitter) is the new project put together by Elizabeth Varley, who has been a feature on the London tech scene for a number of years. She's organised the London Twestival and has been developing the concept of a work space that's aimed at the needs of the tech community, and start ups in particular, for a while.
American magazine Entertainment Weekly is the first print title to have video adverts included inside their pages.
The adverts feature on small screens built into cardboard and the Entertainment Weekly one contains ads for Pepsi Max and US TV network, CBS. There are also in-built speakers and each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video content.
Manufactured my Americhip, the technology is still quite bulky; the chip is mounted on a thick cardboard insert and takes several seconds to load. Quite the wait for an impatient reader.
UPDATED: Hot off the back of the success of their inaugural event in May this year, Media140 are hosting their latest one day conference investigating the effects that Twitter and real-time social media are having on advertisers, marketers and brands.
Win FREE tickets for Media140’s next groundbreaking event, when real-time web meets consumer engagement on 26 October, RIBA London.
After video clips of a store employee running riot in corriders, staff rooms and damaging stock were posted on YouTube the ASDA fought back with some damage limitation, social media style.
Clips showed My Ayub, employee of the ASDA Fulwood store, licking and stamping on a raw chicken and putting it back on the shelf for customers to buy, he set off fire alarms and cut other employees clothes.
In retaliation employees from ASDA Fulwood branch posted their responses to his YouTube carnage online. The staff members featured in the comeback video look genuinely upset and called for,
"the person involved to get what's coming to
them."
Good news for web developers and designers, Microsoft have launched WebsiteSpark; a program that gives web developers and designers free use of Microsoft development tools, applications and server licenses, for up to 3 years. Read on to find out if you're eligible.
The WebsiteSpark program is the third in the Spark series, behind BizSpark and DreamSpark for students.
If you're a struggling start-up, self employed, or an entreprenuer, you could find yourself the lucky recipient of some free office space for the next 3 months, courtesy of those nice people at eOffice.
They're giving away £100,000 worth of free office services to 100 UK companies. That's £1,000 worth of free services that could be going STRAIGHT to your organisation.
It's a lot easier to broaden our musical horizons these days. With P2P file sharing, music streaming sites and song download services sky rocketing, the way we listen to and consume music has changed beyond all recognition.
But in perilous times like these is the ad-funded music model really viable? Or are modern day music fans simply looters in disguise?
In July of this year we held our Chinwag Live: Music who pays the piper event, debating all of the above and more.
We're proud to have Dominic Sparkes, MD of interactive community management company Tempero, as today's guest blogger.
As soon as you start talking about child safety and the internet, a number of issues start to appear. Socialising online is now firmly a part of modern living for young people and as a growing medium it's inevitable marketers will want to engage their audience via the mediums they are using.
The government is taking online child safety seriously and rightly so. They recently set up the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and have provided guidance to the industry to enable self-regulation. This has left the marketing industry responsible for navigating a complex web of guidance and law when executing online campaigns which children may encounter.
We all know that when we go for a job interview our social network profile will probably get a once over by HR or we'll at least have a Google search done on us but in the social network/job interview scenario the odds, it seems, are stacked against the candidate.
The latest newsletter from eMarketer, that gets to grips with how social networks help and hinder job candidates, makes for some eye-popping reading.
Out of the total HR professionals polled 18% said that a person's online profile had encouraged them to make a job offer. A profile can work in a candidates favour. It can show that you're a good fit for the company, professionally and creatively, which would be tricky to determine from an interview alone.
PRESS RELEASE: London, UK, Wednesday 23rd September 2009.
The UK digital industry will once again get a boost when enterprise and expertise connect in the Digital Mission to Los Angeles and San Francisco, from 11th - 16th October 2009.
Organised by Chinwag and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the five day mission provides the perfect vehicle to make business connections, discover the logistics of setting up shop, build international profile and understand the US digital market.
14 UK-based companies have been selected to take part and they are:
Further information and contact details for each company is available on the Digital Mission website: http://digital-mission.org/lasf09-companies.
