Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

It took ages but I’ve finally got the images for the listings sites uploaded to the new host and the domains that I’ve transferred seem to be operational too.

That leaves me with about half a dozen domains to do today to complete the move of the listings sites. They’re the simple ones so there shouldn’t be any problem in moving them over.

Next up are the blogs and the directory which are a little more complex in that they both use databases. There’s a surprising number of photos in the blog too but nothing like the amount that the listings sites use.

Once they’re over, I’ll be able to delete the databases from 1and1 and downgrade my hosting plan which’ll save something like £10/month as the only pre-database plan I needed was all of £25/year. That’s actually the biggest problem with the charging structure on 1and1 – if you need a database then you’re immediately looking at a jump from a reasonable £25/year up to £10/month.

I was a bit taken aback by the very high takeup from our e-mail to Scottish B&Bs and self-catering places a couple of weeks ago. So many took it up in fact that I’m going to have to implement a redesign of the site for Scotland that I’d not planned on doing ’til next year at the earliest.

So, I figured that the takeup would be broadly similar in Northern Ireland. Yet, although I’ve mailed a similar number of places (allowing for NI being smaller), the takeup is only about 10% of that for Scotland. Less than that actually as I’m still getting new entries for Scotland from the e-mail of a few weeks ago.

The wording is identical too so I’ve no idea why the takeup should be so abysmally low: lower even than the notional 1% that I should have received.

I’ve been “hit” yet again by StumbleUpon for a post in the same subject area ie on The France Show.

As before, there are the usual hundreds of hits and diddly in terms of adsense income from them as, on the whole, StumbleUpon people tend to be looking for something fairly specific (which is pretty ironic given the nature of it, of course).

What I keep meaning to do is to use StumbleUpon in some way as I feel sure that there must be some way to keep the arrivals on the site in some way. So far though I’ve not sat down and done more than think a little about it.

Ideas welcome!

As regular readers will know, I’ve been getting going on my direct mail campaign aimed at increasing the number of entries on the B&B and self-catering listings sites.

The second use of the mailing list for Scotland pulled in quite a considerable number of properties over the last two weeks. So much so that I’m going to have to implement the planned restructuring of the site well ahead of schedule.

For reasons which escape me, the England mailing hasn’t pulled in anything like the number that Scotland did. Something to explore the reasons for before I do the next one in 2008.

However, for the first time, I’ve targetted Northern Ireland. Early days yet of course, but it looks like the takeup will be relatively low. The size of the mailing was pretty much similar to that for Scotland but, so far, I’ve only received about 1/4 of the response. Still, perhaps some more will come in over the course of the weekend.

In times gone by saying that you were involved in a “cottage industry” meant that you were doing something like making quilts at home or perhaps making cute little craft items. Essentially, working with your hands by and large.

These days a cottage industry is quite a different beast.

Yes, there are still many people around making those quilts and craft items but you’ll see them sold online these days. In fact, that aspect gives you more contact with the original maker of such items than most people would have had in the hay-day of the cottage industry. In the past, they’d have sold most of their items via buyers whereas now they can sell them to you directly.

However, these days there is a whole new class of cottage industry. It’s not uncommon to come across an ebay seller in the most unusual places. I’ve bought several items from a place based in the Shetland Islands myself which is about as far from “civilisation” as you can be. Likewise, there’s a number of places based in Point Roberts, the little bit of land forgoten about when the treaty definining the border between Canada and America was signed.

Similarly there are the likes of myself making something of a living from writing. There have, of course, been writers pottering away for a long time but the Internet has made that much more of an occupation open to everyone than it ever was in the past. After all, realistically I’d never have had a hope of getting 35,000 readers a week for my writing yet that’s the number I’ve had in the last week for this blog.

Some might say that these Internet based efforts aren’t a cottage industry. How could they be with so much technology? Yet, that craft item you bought also used technology, it’s just that the technology used to produce it was older.