July 2010

Japanese Games Mag Publisher, Enterbrain Joins Japan Games Mission

Tokyo Game Show 2008 by kanegen

There's still time to get an application in for the UKTI Mission to Tokyo Games Show designed specifically for UK-based games companies targeting the Japanese market with a detailed insight into the challenges of working in Japan, and highlighting the opportunities available.

The team in Tokyo have confirmed that Enterbrain (Wikipedia entry) who publish Weekly Famitsu, Famitsu Xbox360, Famitsu PSP+PS3, Famitsu DS+Wii as well as compiling retail games charts will be attending the roundtable session and the British Embassy reception.

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30 July 2010 by Sam Michel

£10,000 Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur Competition Opens

Shell LiveWIRE Awards

Is there a competition season? If not, maybe we've identified a trend here. Next up on the award trail is the Shell LiveWIRE awards which is now open for entries, and the £10,000 up for grabs is not to be sniffed at.

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30 July 2010 by Sam Michel

The Hunt for Europe's Best Mobile Startup

Arm Player Controls

€150,000 is up for grabs in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition running across the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds, the first of which is being coordinated by the organiser's of Mobile Monday London, who will put together a shortlist, from which a winner will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24th, 2010.

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28 July 2010 by Sam Michel

Ticket Competition: Hubbub, the North West's New Creative & Marketing Conference

01620015a by coxy

Hubbub, an exciting new conference and exhibition for creative and marketing companies hits Manchester this October (13-14th). The event includes a conference, exhibition and series of satellite events covering social media, B2B marketing, experiential marketing and lots more.

We're delighted the organisers have offered two lucky Chinwaggers a free ticket to one of the four half-day conference sessions:

  • The Future of Marketing - augmented reality and the future of marketing capability.
  • Experiential Marketing with a focus on brand activation and virtual events
  • B2B Marketing - including debate on marketing automation, is social media appropriate for B2B marketing and is traditional media dead?
  • The role social media now plays across all media, marketing and communication sectors.

Entering the competition couldn't be simpler, just fill in the form below by Fri 6th August and one of the tickets could be yours.

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27 July 2010 by Sam Michel

70% of UK Small Businesses in SEO #fail

I can't believe what I'm looking at by Ed Yourdon

Really? Still? A study commissioned by ThomsonLocal.com found that 70% of companies with less than 50 employees were doing little or no search engine optimisation.

Considering the importance of search marketing, particularly for SMEs and the basic optimisation included in practically all ecommerce and content management tools, the results are rather startling: 

  • 47% of all business websites have none or very basic levels of SEO
  • Over 70% of companies with less than 50 employees have none or very basic levels of SEO
  • 74% have no basic website analytics software for tracking site visits
  • 12% of all business websites are not indexed in any search engine
  • 0.6% of business websites are under construction
  • Only 3% of all business websites could be considered to have advanced levels of SEO
  • 82% have no HTML sitemap
  • 75% have no XML sitemap
  • 69% have no Robots.txt file configured
  • 35% do not have unique Page Titles
  • 56% do not have unique Page Descriptions

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26 July 2010 by Sam Michel

Indian iPad Competitor Launches. Cost: £25

In my bag today by Mat Packer

Yes, you read that right. Nope, it's not a typo. £25 (actually, £23 on current rates). Rumoured features include colour, multi-touch 10.5" screen, 2Gb memory, Flash compatibility, Wifi, Ethernet connection, camera and an optional extra of a solar charger.

That means word processing, video conferencing, web browsing and yes, the ability to play Flash videos, games for less than the cost of the AppleCare warranty on an iPad (3 times less, if we're counting).

The Indian technology sector is developing a name for itself for throwing out the rule book when it comes to the cost of consumer technology. Witness the £1,900 Nano car from Tata and for roughly the same price, how's about open heart surgery.

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23 July 2010 by Sam Michel

UKTI Announces Tokyo Games Show Mission

Tokyo Game Show 2008 by kanegen

Organised by UK Trade & Investment's Japan experts, the mission to the Tokyo Games Show (TGS)  will include expert briefings, company visits, British Embassy reception, networking events as well as the stand space, meeting room access and delegate access to the Tokyo Games Show.

The Tokyo Games Show is Japan’s main annual computer games convention, which last year saw 185,000 visitors and over 180 exhibitors (including 92 from overseas). TGS 2010 is expected to have more visitors this year with an even more international focus.

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22 July 2010 by Chinwag Team

£5m Metadata R&D Competition Round-up & Reference

PFI Metadata Competition

The Partnering for Innovation (Metadata) events drew the cream of the UK's Metadatarists, which if not a proper word, should be.

The competition itself opens on 13th September so there's still plenty of time to put find a partner and put in an application. During the events in Birmingham and London, delegates took place in an Ideas Marketplace, outlining their concepts, companies, partners wanted and provide a handy way to find potential collaborators.

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18 July 2010 by Sam Michel

Last Chance: dConstruct 2010 Ticket Competition

Laptop stickers by Phil Hawksworth

Update: dConstruct has already sold out. This is your last chance to get your hands on tickets!

Roll up, roll up, the chance to win 2 tickets to dConstruct 2010. The sea-side plus some brain-enhancing design-related sessions. Sound good?

dConstruct 2010The competition closes today (Fri, 16th July) so get your skates on, and you could score yourself tickets to this year's event (1-3rd Sept) in Brighton. It couldn't be easier to enter, just fill out this simple form.

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16 July 2010 by Sam Michel

Old Spice Man's Mad Social Skillz

Old Spice Man Youtube Screenshot

I can already picture a new shelf being added to the awards cabinet at Wieden + Kennedy, following the Old Spice campaign. Let's take in some numbers:

In 48 hours, the team led by Brit, Iain Tait, produced 200 videos and wracked up 6,839,830 YouTube views (at time of writing ~72hrs from launch). The media coverage has been almost universally positive, even daring to engage with the notorious troublemakers at 4chan.

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16 July 2010 by Sam Michel