blending the mix

My Sony laptop is on the verge of packing in, after years and years of (ab)use it is at death’s door.

The CD drive does not allow me to burn back-up discs anymore and it is pot luck as to whether or not it will work from one day to the next.

So, I am offering a unique opportunity to sponsor ME.

Apple, Microsoft, Dell, or indeed any company willing to provide me with a half-decent laptop will have their name mentioned as part of my email signature.

In ALL communications in which I participate and which requires me to use the laptop (pretty much all the time!), I will apply the following signature text for a full 12 months (and I WILL provide weekly evidence of this):

Paul Fabretti

Director

Written on an Apple Macbook Pro by Company X.

Or

"Written using the latest Dell Precision M90"

or whatever suits the company providing it! You get the picture!

I may even think about something that sounds good too!

I am a minimum 3-times a day, 3-blog blogger with a (growing) average 800 unique visitors per month (ok, not a lot but growing all the time!). I am an active member of linked-in, openbc, ecademy as well as the pinkomarketing wiki and google group.

I am also an eBay (UK) Gold Power seller. A link to the company providing my laptop will also be included in ALL my eBay auctions.

Some will no doubt snigger at the visitor numbers (and advertisers may balk at the numbers!) but I am an extremely active member of the communities in which I mix, and present you with an opportunity to touch business professionals deeper than any banner ad would.

If this is of interest to you and you would be able to provide me with a laptop, I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Tags: ebay, Dell, Apple, Macbook Pro, laptop, pinko marketing

The BBC reports that central park will become a wireless hub by this summer, ensuring that FULL and FREE wi-fi access can be had by all.

The city’s Park’s Department says that by July there will be 8 active wireless spots covering almost all the park, with a further rollout accros New York’s other parks later in the year to complement those already in place in Bryant Park in mid-town and Tompkins Square Park in the East Village.

Technorati Tags: wireless, wi-fi

Application-specific WiFi for free by Niall Kennedy touches on an interesting possibility of the evolution of Wi-Fi.

Rather than invest in unmetered free wi-fi for all, people like Yahoo! are exploring how pratical the restriction of free wi-fi may be to specific application users (like those connecting to say, Yahoo chat or their Yahoo profile).

With growing demand for Google style free-for-all wi-fi access, this could be a very positive step, but could equally be a very negative one.
If Yahoo! invests in wi-fi technology to create hotspots for its own users, is there not a sense of “big brother” about the whole thing? Unless you join us you won’t get free wifi access?

Micro Persuasion: Marketing’s New Black is an exploratory article into how the gadget now dominates the daily commute instead of newspapers.

Steve argues that the dominant commuter-activity is now SMS, iPod, Blackberry or PDA’s these days rather than reading newspapers and suggests that the gadgets are taking over.

But I have to ask how much of this is down to the increasing popularity of technology rather than the natural evolution of the newspaper market?

Do newspapers like the Guardian and The Times now produce tabloid-sized versions because they want to save paper? I don’t think so! I think that newspapers finally recognised the utter impracticality of large broadsheet newspapers being read on publilc transport with limited space…

…or have they?

Have they realised just how many people use news-capable gadgets such as Blackberry’s or mobiles (not on the tube!) and reacted accordingly by making their basic product more practical?

Does size matter or is it the portability of the medium that makles the difference?
Ultimately, the whole subject deepens newspaper’s fears that a wi-fi connected commuter will soon not need to buy a newspaper and then how do they sell their content?

Merrell Ligons has a truly interesting post about Google’s posting of a wi-fi advertising patent - which could revolutionise the growth and use of wi-fi worldwide.

I honestly think that wifi growth is being slowed by loborious paid-for sign-up processes which in turn limits the willingness for companies to invest in the technology - therefore limiting coverage.

If sign-up was free (subsidised by ads), then there will without doubt be an explosion of demand from both users AND local advertisers willing to cash in.

Assuming the hotspot “hosts” receive a cut of the ad revenue cake for investing in the technology, then this could be the single-most important factor in taking wifi mainstream.

Marketeers, get your thinking caps on! Google Local is one thing when at your desktop, but being local when in the locality is quite another.

Powerful? Imagine being able to tie-in a hot-spot coffee house purchase with a discounted lunch at your restaurant around the corner…or being able to offer a discounted paper or magazine that the user may have picked up at the coffee house…or even a promotional offer from your around the corner cd shop for the music being played in the coffee house…

Mega-powerful…lunchtime special offers that pop-up as the user is at the computer…watch them walk over with their laptops in hand in response to your timed offers…as Merrell says…a Minority Report world is not too far away - fuelled largely by Google‘s advertising-led revenue generation!

Technorati Tags: wi-fi, wifi, Google Local, Google