I like this quote from fast company.

"The question on the table is whether big data--that is, the accumulation and manipulation of massive quantities of information--will change our world, or whether it's just another overhyped technology with a too-good-to-be-true story line."

I had been hosting all my websites with a particular hosting company that were know to be particularly focused on Drupal. I must have been with them for about 4 years. I survived their terrible start up phase, the slow servers, the outages, the full sql table errors that were thrown to my visitors. I lost money in sales due to these errors but I stayed on, partly because I believed they would improve, party because they were affordable, and partly because I hated the thought of moving 20+ sites to another host (I now host with bluehost). I even signed up other clients to their services.

You already know pinterest is hot like butter on a buffalo. You also know instagram and twitter love consuming mobile phone photos like a lawn mower eats grass. And who knows what is going to happen with Oggl from hipstamatic. The challenge for most of us is how to intelligently create a pinterest / photo experience on our ecommerce sites without heavy custom development that requires ongoing maintenance. Enter, Olapic.

Olapic does a few cool things but essentially you can import and display photos from around the interwebs using hashtags and similar. If your panicking about how to control what appears on your site you needn't, there is full control over what goes up and what doesn't. Curated people, curated.

What would Olapic be cool for?
You can have customer product photos appear on your product detail pages.
Run hashtag photo competitions and have sexy looking pinterest style pages showcasing all the entries to the competition.

In Olapic's words they you can collect, curate and display photos from facebook, instagram, twitter and more.

I'm not one for predicting the future but I do think that after today's launch of Blackberry 10 that they are back in the game.

Amazing recovery, although time will tell if I am right.

In this day and age SEO is the chasis to the car, it's the foundations to the building and the soles on the shoe. It should come first and the website you are building or redesigning should draw it's structure from it.

It is still difficult for some businesses to understand why SEO is so important. You don't know the business your missing by not having a properly optimized site.

You can't build a new house until the foundations are laid. So with SEO you need to start with keyword research and analysis to understand how the site should be structured. It doesn't hurt to have a content plan but allow your content plan to adapt to the results of your SEO research.

Search Engine Optimization analysis will tell you what your potential clients are looking for which in turn allows you to target them accordingly with effective landing page and copy writing.

It's difficult to get an iPhone 4 at the moment. Either it is a new Apple strategy to keep everyone going back to the store everyday to queue in the hope of being successful, or they really are just dysfunctional at allocating and building units as needs expect.

Interestingly no one seems to be talking about iPhone stock shortages in Canada. In Vancouver, the Pacific Centre store has a queue out the store and out to the street daily. The sign up process is fairly slow so it must take them hours to finally get a phone, and I feel sorry for the poor buggers at the back of the line who get told to go home.

What is frustrating is that the store staff are none-the-wiser as to when stock is expected. This seems a little lame.

So if you know where there are stocks and supplies of the iPhone 4 in Vancouver or Canada let us know will you.

Advicetap is really aptly named and should require no further introductions or explanations. However, as it is my style to be verbose and long-winded I will attempt to explain in more words why it is a website different to it's apparent peers.

Firstly Advicetap is a great networking hub for Consultants and Marketing professionals. A place to share ideas, knowledge and advice that supports and informs the community at large.

If you are seeking a Marketing consultant, or any consultant, you can also post 'Gigs' to the site and receive applications for the project or role. You only need describe the project and wait for the responses.

The core difference is that Advicetap is managed by hand. The people who sign up to the site are assessed on their field of work to ensure that the site is made from professionals and consultants who do what they say they do, and well. This removes the clutter and noise often apparent on other similar sites.

So whether you are looking for a place to hire local Consultants or you are a Consultant looking for potential clients then you need to sign up. It only takes a minute.

http://www.advicetap.com

My review on Paymo is coming but in the meanwhile I noticed that Paymo integrate with Kashflow. For those of you who are using basecamp, xero or similar this paymo and kashflow integration is brilliantly executed.

For those of you who don't know kashflow is easy to use online accounting and finance management software. Made for people who don't want the accounting jargon but want to manage their business finances, income and expenditure easily online from anywhere in the world.

Paymo is online time management and online billing software that helps you rock your freelance or small business work with ease.

A match made in heaven.

Visit Paymo website here

Visit Kashflow website here (and save £1 off per month with the signup discount code GIVEME1OFF)

I recently returned a wifi router to Futureshop as it was useless and I needed to upgrade. In front of me in the line up was a nervous looking young man with a Sony eBook reader in his hand. As his turn came to approach the returns counter he asked for a refund and as the lady inspected the item he continually stuttered there was nothing wrong with it. This is a familiar sight to me and I recognise it as 'upgrade fever'. The hope that an item you recently purchased or were given can be returned in the hope you can buy the latest thing that got launched which makes your old 'cool gadget', uncool.

Immediately after as I walked to the Wifi Router section to find a worthy replacement I passed the young man again in the 'Apple' section of the store frantically pouring over the Apple website showing the iPad (released only that morning). He looked relaxed now as he had returned his Sony eBook reader and probably had sufficient funds to purchase the iPad when it launches in Canada.

I recently joined up with zip.ca to supplement my TV watching and entertainment needs. After much research I found that Zip listed that they had a dispatch warehouse in Vancouver. This was good news and I expected that I would receive my DVD's within 2-3 days at least. Or so I thought. After adding a plethora of DVD's to my zip list, or zipping DVD's to my list as they call it, I was excited when my first dispatched email was sent within 3 hours of signing up. A great start; From start up to dispatch in 3 hours. The fall came when it listed Ontario as the dispatch depot....so nearly a week later I finally received my first DVD.

This experience with zip.ca echoes all the online ordering I have done from within Vancouver. The main issue seems to be there are insufficient warehousing options on the west coast or it is not financially viable for these companies to hold stock on the West Coast.