Making a picture album on facebook is not the easiest thing

You know sometimes I am really grateful that facebook exists.Living in England for the last 8 years its hard to keep up with all of my friends and know exactly what are they doing.

Social Media, saved me from the trouble as I can find people , find my friends, see what they are doing , talk to them, comment on their photos, play with them games…etc etc etc..

I like all that cause I consider myself an online media freak that wants to know everything that is going on online and getting the latest gadgets. Well, as much as my pocket can afford them.

However, sometimes I really get annoyed when I don’t get what I was promised from the social media that I gladly give my personal information and a part of my life. Cause when you give something, you expect something back and in this case from companies like Facebook I expect –among others- a good user experience.

This Christmas I went holidays to Costa Rica and as anyone that goes holidays on another part of the planet from where he lives, I came back with more than 600 pictures and my new digital camera. Well, as a good social open person that I am, I decided to choose the best pictures and upload them to Facebook so I can share them with my friends that they were in other countries around the world.

After a long process I managed to come down to around 240 pictures which I decided to upload on FB. But at that point all the problems began.

You see even if I have one of the best lines available in the UK –virgin fibre optics- it took quite some time to upload all the pictures to Facebook. Nevertheless I can accept that it can’t be facebook’s fault for that. However, when you change the way that you create an album every 6 months then you create the problems to the users that have to learn everything from the start again.

After I uploaded the pictures finally, I had to put my personal comments in all the pictures that I wanted, name the album, tag the places that I have been…countries etc etc…Before I had to re-order the pictures so the album had a proper timeline according to my holidays. So everyone would realise that this happened in the first days…that happened in towards the end….and that happened in the last days. It shouldn’t be so hard. After all, facebook gives you the opportunity to have a timeline in your profile, so it should be easy to have a timeline in your facebook album right? Wrong.

You see Facebook gives you the opportunity to re-order the first 200 pictures of your album . If you have more than 200 and somehow a picture that was supposed to be in the end  was uploaded first…then you can’t move it.

Not to say that immediately after I uploaded the pictures the browser crashed. Not Google Chrome, but Mozilla also and Internet Explorer.

Even when I tried to upload it again so it will end up in the end of the album…well it was uploaded in the start…

Most probably you ll be thinking now….come on be serious…this is not a serious thing to blame Facebook. Well I am sorry but it is. That’s what you expect from the biggest social media company of the world, to offer you good user experience and not having to spend couple of hours for something that should be easy.  If you don’t do it, then your customers may go somewhere else…yes like google+ as they left from MySpace and Hi5 some years ago to come to Mark Zuckenberk’s creation.

That’s the problem with Online Business, you must always be a step ahead from the competition and provide products or services that are not faulty. If you think that you are on top and you don’t continue to evolve or fix any problems you have as a company then you risk being overtaken by someone else.

And as far as I hear personally there are many people that are continuously disappointed with FB’s services.

Living and working in London gives you the opportunity to do a lot of things. First of all gives you the opportunity to work something that unfortunately isn’t so common nowadays in other parts of the world like…Greece for example…where a lot of my friends are still looking for work.

Working gave me the opportunity to fulfil some nice travels and one of them was in central America that I was planning it for many years.  I had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica this Christmas and experience the beauties of that country from first hand.

I didn’t have any experiences in other countries of Latin America but I would go back to costa rica any time. The natural beauties of the land are second to none and they are worth a visit if you find a chance.  The only expensive thing would be the tickets if you are travelling from London…and of course you are prepared to skip the big hotels.

Best moment? Scuba diving in the pacific and the Caribbean sea….. Being underwater with thousands of small fishes is something unbelievable…. If I only I could take some pictures underwater…well next time…. J

Manchester United Old Trafford

This Saturday i managed to fulfill one of my biggest dreams as a
football fan. To watch a football match in Old Trafford and Manchester
United. Well, it was enjoyable and a great experience that i will
treasure for a long time. Firstly because i dont know when i will go
back to the stadium again -as i am a londoner- but also because it great
to experience such a good game in the theatre of dreams.

woo themes

Lately I was thinking on how many blogs and sites I have made until now. I realised that number of the blogs were well over fifty either for personal or professional use.

Building a blog can be difficult if you have no knowledge regarding sites and the internet as most of the people. Needless to say that 2-3 years ago I barely knew how to build one site. Despite that things change and by know I think I am quite good in building different kind of blogs with wordpress.

The main problem that people have is having a nice design that they can use and play around with it personalizing it to their own taste.

You can find a lot of sites that are selling their own customize wordpress themes but I have to say that I had the best experience working with woo themes. Either when I had to make a site for personal use or for a project on my work. There are various reasons why I prefer to work with those themes and ill try to explain them.

Designs

Honestly they have a variety of designs you can choose from that fits more or less every site you want to make. Is it a magazine? A travel blog? Food blog? News? You want to show your portofolio? Well it’s there for you to get.  The funny thing is that most of the themes have different abilities. So for example if you take for example the Canvas word press theme, you can easily change it from a magazine, to a blog or to a more interactive one as it has various abilities.  In addition to that you can see the demo of the site so you can be absolutely sure on what you are getting.

Easy to work and build

All of the themes have their own framework and modifications that make it easy for newbies to come and make a new blog that is seo optimized, or have picture galleries or videos without the need to know any HTML or programming. The funny thing is that the themes are so easy to play around these days that many of my friends thing I have some special computer knowledge. Which I assure you I don’t!

So for example most of the themes have built in plug ins to connect your blogs with your flickr galleries or with your twitter accounts.  You don’t like the colours? You can easily change them from the platform just by clicking the colour you like and then checking if it’s good or not.  That’s the difference, on other themes for most of the things you want to do you must search for the relevant plug in, install it and then change whatever you need. In woo themes most of those stuff are already pre-installed.

Free themes!

Well yeah! You can register and download thirteen free wordpress themes that look good and are stylish! Not only they give free themes but they give a lot of so you can choose and believe I have used almost all of them in different cases. The prices to buy a theme are not really expensive even if I am sure you will find even cheaper themes on the net. Despite that I believe that if you try some of the free themes and see the quality and how it easy to play around with them…eventually you will end up buying a better one.

I have worked with woo themes for quite some time now and became a big advocate of the brand as in my opinion they offer good quality for bloggers that want to set up there site without paying a lot of money. Surely if you are more experienced maybe you will use some of your own plug ins but if you are not?

Even if I have affiliate links on this post, it’s not an advertising post rather than explanatory of the abilities you can have with woo themes.

Personally I have built as I said more than 50 sites with woo themes (one of them is the one you are reading) so if you want any help and you can’t get it from there support (highly unlikely) then feel free to contact me.

Steve Jobs

Like the last few days to write an article about Steve Jobs. I understood that he died on where I put my computer to Google and I saw the Apple glad if the next date of birth and death.

The sadness I felt was big enough and did not know the main reason …

The same day saw many to lament his death and others to denounce as a man who was not anything special. Reading some messages on facebook some described him as an example of capitalism and a mere millionaire who you money and had not saved him from death …

But nobody ever admired him for the money he made …

Physical stress from before that Steve Jobs was not and will never be a saint. The founder of the iphone and ipad not found the medicine for immortality, and neither should compare with poets, scientists, writers, because it simply was not in the same field.

The Jobs in technology but has pioneered and brought products that nobody else could have imagined to do. In history there remain those who go along with the mob … but those who think differently and are struggling to support different ideas and one of them was Steve Jobs.

To tell the truth but not always the same man who knew the last 10 years, but went through several mutations can be the one who gave us all these products adored. But on the other so is the life … no one wakes up from one moment to another and says: “Now I create the iphone”.

These are made through several processes and numerous failures … and Jobs has failed several times to reach to become the man revered as a god. Many worship him because they say that was the idea of ​​the iphone … and ipad … OK if you want to believe it is their right.

But Steve Jobs was not what drew the ipad, neither he who designed the processor or the director of marketing at Apple. But was he who united all the brilliant minds working in the company of Silicon Valley and led me to think differently … to hunt the elusive … not be happy with just a good product but be satisfied only with perfection. Then if they are confident that they caught the perfect time to see how to pass.

Surely the world would be worse if not for the iphone or ipad or ipod but I think o Jobs will not be remembered as the man who just made a phone but as a man who led an entire sector to move more quickly due to offer best services worldwide.

Many now say that Google’s Android and Samsung phones are better than the iphone. Others think it would pull such numbers as fast as Google and Samsung if it had gone the iphone? Maybe yes, but probably not …

That was Jobs, a man who appears once in 100 years and raises the limit to a sector (industry / science etc etc) so that forces everyone else to run for them to follow him … and so pushes and around the world ahead.

For this I admire these people because it was a man in the field of technology-as-there are others in other areas was thinking differently and chased his beliefs.

Not just the one who made the iphone …

google-facebook

In the last few days…or maybe months I have been reading so many things about Google+ that you feel it’s the most important thing that is happening in the world.

Ok, I am working in the marketing sector and keeping up to date with everything is one thing that I must do in order to know what is happening in the world and keeping up to date with everything on my work.

When google +1 came I really thought it was a good idea, integrating social with the search rankings and showing the results to your friends. On the other hand +1 had a huge competitor like the FB like button and as it seems it hasn’t brought –yet – any serious changes.Nevertheless, the fact that Google openly said that the results would be inside the SERPS and you friends could see what you have +1 was something different and important for everyone.

So the Big G expanded and brought their own Social media site…Google + …and now everyone is thinking whether they need to start using something different than FB. A change is good from time to time…but will Google + offer you anything different from Facebook?

Well, until now as much as I am testing Google + cant say it is offering to me anything better than Facebook and any good reason why I should move all of my friends/pictures ..and online social life (if there is any term like that all) to Google +.

When Facebook came in it was the simplicity of the profiles and the applications that changed the whole game in my opinion that convinced almost the entire world to open an account to Mark’s Zuckenburg baby, I don’t see anything like that in google +.

Sure if you want to avoid most of the people that are in Facebook…your manager that you added because he send a Friends request, your ex-girlfriend or people that you don’t like, then yes Google + is for you. But other than that does it offers anything different?

I mean surely marketing people will be all over it, they will try to advertise over there and try to see if it will affect google rankings but normal people –customers, don’t have any real reason until now I think. Google + will eventually pick in the numbers and will have a good amount of registered users which isn’t really difficult if you think the amount of reach that Google has with its variety of products but I think it will need something completely different to pose a threat for Facebook..

Ambush Marketing is a term I first learned to be honest in twitter following Professor Chadwick from the University of Coventry. Maybe I have read about it in the University but to be honest cant really remember… Either way it’s a marketing strategy that was used widely in the South Africa World Cup and it will be used at the London Olympic Games.

So what is ambush marketing? That’s a nice explanation that I found in the Intellectual Property Office Online.

“Ambush marketing generally occurs when one brand pays to sponsor a large-scale event (usually a sporting event) and a rival brand attempts to associate itself with the event. A marketing campaign takes place around the event but does not involve payment of a sponsorship fee to the event organiser.”

So basically, let’s say that adidas pays to be the sole sponsor of athletic wear in the World Cup, but Nike makes such a good marketing campaign that the fans relate with Nike’s brand more and they connect them with the World Cup rather the German Sportswear giant.

It’s a common technic and it’s used in different fields of Marketing, but it never occurred to me the fact that it is happening on search also… Basically in Google you can easily bet on the brand name of your competitor hoping that someone that is looking for example for Betfair, they will see the ad of William Hill for example and click on them instead.

The London Organising Olympic Committee announced today that they will protect the interest of their sponsors if they notice any  such technics used by competitors of their sponsors.

I would really love to see them however do it. Google doesn’t accept any interference in their personal stuff and in there t/c it states that companies are able to bid for space on a competitors name.

Well, the LOCOG said that it will look each case specific at that time but I believe they will be able to interfere on very few cases. Ambush marketing techniques are becoming more and more common in sporting events nowdays and the problem is that most of them you cannot really stop or predict. That will be the case with search; the only way that they will be able to stop something like that is if the advertiser really tries to connect his brand with the Olympic Games in which case they will be sued.

Other than that I really doubt if Google will even care…