Proudly presenting BomoBeats

Posted by luke on Mar 24, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

Its always good to be involved in a project which is matched with something you’re passionate about, with that in mind, I’m proud to present BomoBeats to the world!

In my spare time, I produce and present a show on the local FM radio station, as much as possible promoting new (local) music – BomoBeats has been set up by a group of us with the sole aim of promoting this musical talent in Bournemouth to a wider audience.

Social Tech Solutions are acting as the technology partner by providing hosting and web design, as well as a package of online social media marketing.

UPDATE: Press Release now available on BomoBeats

me2everyone

Posted by luke on Mar 16, 2009 in Blog | 47 comments

Anyone else had invites to this as yet un-launched social network?

The basic pitch is that you get shares for signing up and once the site is the new Facebook these nominal 0.01p shares will be worth £££’s (sigh).

Is me2everyone a scam?
Is it a clever viral campaign and, as it claims, destined to be the next big social network?
Is it a spam harvesting exercise?
Is it a waste of time?

Well one of my aims for this blog was to do the research into these things so you don’t have too… I signed up with one of my mail.com accounts (no addr book for it to spam, no real details) that I use for testing such things.

Alarm bell 1

Both invites I received were suspiciously similar – despite one being from a mid-30s business contact and the other a 20 year old musician contact.

And, sure enough once I’d logged in if offered me stock emails I could send to all my friends, like this one:

Recommending your friends, family, work colleaugues and even complete strangers is a great way to earn bonus shares. At the moment we are giving you 200 bonus shares for EVERYONE who you recommend using the link given above.

This is a real world value of GBP £0.20 today: but by 2012, we are forecasting these to be worth GBP £0.58! So imagine receiving GBP £116 for every new member you find!

Plus EVERYONE you recommend today will receive 100 shares for registering here for FREE. SImple…

Alarm bell 2

Perhaps I’m being a snob, but the site is distinctly amateur looking, apart from the intro video, the T+C’s are copy pasted from a £15 service i had come across before (website-law).

Alarm bell 3

The about us for the website lists an address in Kent that is distinctly residential – see here if you really want to (google map).

Any REAL “new facebook” would surely at least have a registered PO Box or… an office!

Alarm bell 4

Once registered ALL of the text reads like a run of the mill MLM scheme, talking about levels of membership and share options.

Remember the plan to close off recruiting at 300,000 members?

Well 10 minutes ago one of our Founder Members gave us the green light to keep the recruitment process open. This is wonderful news as we begin to expand towards the first half a million members. It also signals a change to the way we do business here:

1) Later today the first 40 Global Exec members will be named online

2) We also let you know the leaders in our “10 MILLION SHARE CHASE”

3) We will also give you a glimpse of the new Beta test pages… a chance to see where m2e will be very soon!

4) We are looking at the prospect of meeting with members to launch the Customer Care Manager team

5) News will be coming online a lot more frequently from today.
PLEASE READ THE NEXT STORY TO FIND OUT IMPORTANT CHANGES TO THE SHARE LEVELS

Alarm bell 5

NONE of what I’d call the big 5 tech blogs have written about it, its not (as of 2200 GMT 16th March) on Mashable, Wired, The Register, boingboing or TechCrunch.

Me2Everyone in Summary

A clever, mlm kind of social network scheme, most likely not malicious in intent but an idea that plays on all the usual tricks of “get rich quick” type schemes, hell its the oldest chain email in the book! “Send this email to all your friends and you’ll get £100 from Bill Gates” – and those earned people… how much money again?

I call scam – avoid it.

Startup meetup has moved

Posted by luke on Mar 16, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

We’re hosting the next startup-meetup here at Alex’s Good Food Cafe, 10-12 on Thursday march 19th.

I’m working hard… and should… (if all comes together) be alpha releasing/demoing one of our projects on Thursday! (orig launch was scheduled for 26th March)

We’re keeping the kind of drop in format, if you have a pitch you’d like to practice… or perhaps like to bounce some ideas off others please come along!

engagement good faking bad

Posted by luke on Mar 9, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

Mr Sockpuppet (aka Cllr Grower) has been cleared by the standards board, over the sockpuppet issue.

The Standards Board for England found he had not broken the council’s code of conduct as he was not acting for the authority when posting the messages.

The board noted: “The code of conduct applies to members when they conduct the business of their authority.

“In writing under another name for a newspaper Councillor Ben Grower was not conducting the business of his authority or office.”

How is commenting on council projects, by a councillor on a public forum… such as the echo website NOT conducting the business of his authority or office?

Is that to say he could leave racist, or other hate speech online under a pseudonym and that would be ok? Surely not.

Irrespective of the findings, he is a fool. If you are any kind of public figure and you engage with the public in any means you should be accountable for that.

It almost makes me want to write to the councillor and offer him some free training.

Engagement online, 2 points – faking it -10 points.

Office open evening postponed

Posted by luke on Mar 9, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

Apologies for the late notice, the launch evening for our shared office has been postponed and will no longer be taking place tomorow (March 10th).