business & innovation

My annual trek to the North East for Thinking Digital is always a treat. Organised by Herb Kim, recently named #83 in the MediaGuardian Top 100 and his team at Codeworks, the event promises much and delivers.

The event takes place in the futuristic surroundings of Newcastle's re-developed quayside using the photogenic Sage and Baltic venues and features a wide range of speakers from tech-heavy to the unexpected.

The videos from this year's event have just been published on their website. My favourites...

After lots of requests, we've managed to get The deadline for the UKTI mission to the Tokyo Games Show extended until this Friday, the 6th August.

The trip which includes industry briefings and round table sessions with experts from the Japanese games industry including leading games magazine publisher, Enterbrain also features a reception at the British Embassy.

It's like a never-ending stream of free stuff round here at the moment. First the Hubbub competition, next up Shell LiveWIRE for young entrepreneurs and now the chance for a mobile SME to score some high-profile stand space at Mobile World Congress.

The Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network (DCKTN) and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) are running a competition for lucky UK-based SMEs with an innovative new mobile or wireless solution or product to showcase their wares.

The UKTI stand will be located on the Avenida at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona from 14 - 17 Feb 2011 and offers amazing chance to target more than 60,000 key industry decision makers that are expected to attend.

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.

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.

€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.

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.

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

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.