Support ‘The Big Event’ at the Liverpool Echo Arena on the 7th of February. This will be the largest Apprenticeship Recruitment Fair of the year and it is free for businesses to attend.
To reserve a space visit http://liverpool.gov.uk/Business/merseyside-apprenticeship-programme/ or contact Liverpool City Council Employment and Skills for more information on 0151 233 2842
Check out our new ad campaign currently showing on the screens at Goodison Park!
MAS North West will be holding another one of their great events on Thursday 20th October, discussing ways your business can improve its sales, marketing and web strategies.
The seminar, which will be held at the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, will run between 9:00am-4:00pm and feature guest speakers from a number of different sectors.
Our very own Managing Director, Judith O’Brien, will be on hand to discuss digital marketing and how it can help your business.
MAS has proved a great success since it was launched in 2002, helping UK manufacturers to share knowledge and improve productivity. Past events have proved successful for all participants, with many enjoying networking time at the end of the presentations. We hope to see you there!
Venue : Suites Hotel, Knowsley
Date : 20th October 2011
Time : 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
For more information and a full events schedule, visit http://www.mas-nw.co.uk/events
Budget airline bmibaby has joined forces with location-based network Gowalla to reward customers through a loyalty programme.
Check-in locations have been created at 34 destination airports and five of their main airports including Manchester Airport, Birmingham Airport, Cardiff Airport, East Midlands Airport and Belfast City Airport.
The idea is for customers to check-in before and after their bmibaby flight, and in return they will be entered in to a prize draw with winners being announced each month.
The company are looking to expand the service even more for their most loyal customers. This would include offering gold, silver and bronze pin rewards, with each pin unlocking a new reward.
Julian Carr, bmibaby Managing Director, had the following to say:
”We are pleased to be working with Gowalla on this customer reward scheme. At bmibaby we embrace new social media initiatives. We believe this is a fun way in which we can offer our customers something extra.”
Could this could be the tool to expand Gowalla’s fanbase as it aims to compete with Foursquare?
On Saturday 16th April, Sony’s servers were illegally accessed, leaving 77 million customer accounts vulnerable. An old database of credit card data was accessed along with current personal user information including, login data, passwords, emails and home addresses, with the only data encrypted being the credit card data.
Once Sony became aware of the breach on the 20th, they shut down services immediately and informed developers that the site was down due to ‘emergency maintenance’. After users started to complain that they couldn’t access the service, a message was sent out explaining that they were looking in to the problem but didn’t have a timescale.
Although Sony had told users it was investigating the cause of the outage, it wasn’t until the 22nd that they were told the problem was caused by an external attack on the system.
On April 26th, Sony sent an email to its users asking them to check bills and remain vigilant as they continued to look in to the issue, but stated that there was no evidence that any information had been taken.
The company announced on the 30th that they would gradually begin to restore services to its users, but this statement was soon withdrawn as just two days later Sony shut down their servers for a second time, releasing the following:
“In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately”.
Today the company sent out a mass email to 24.6 million online users stating that their data was compromised on 16th April.
Before MySpace and Facebook took over the world, there was another site that fed our need for social networking, Friendster.
Created in 2002, the site allowed users to connect with each other and share media and information.
The service was considered hot property, and in 2003 Google offered to buy the company for £30 million, which was turned down by founder Jonathan Abrams.
When other sites such as Facebook came along, Friendster started loosing their hold of North America and were forced to concentrate on the Asian market, were the product proved very popular. Even though they had continued success, the company wasn’t making any profit.
In 2009, the company was bought out by Malaysian internet firm MOL Global, with hopes of regaining their popularity in areas such as North America.
Unfortunately a change in direction couldn’t help the site, and even though they still managed to maintain over 115 million registered users, the end was near.
This week the company told their loyal users that all of their data would be deleted as they aim to take Friendster in a different direction. They explained that they would be turning Friendster in to a gaming site, hoping to work alongside Facebook, rather than being their competition.
If you are like me, you logged in to your Spotify account this week, only to be met by a message explaining that the company would be cutting back on their free music service, with limits effectively being cut in half.
The new rules mean that users will now be restricted to 10 hours listening time a month, but it’s not the time limit users are going to have a problem with; it’s more the track restrictions. From now on, users will only be allowed to listen to a track 5 times in total, not a month.
These changes, especially the track limit, will hit users hard and many people have already accused the company of trying to turn the free service in to a paying one.
For new users, things are a little different. The service will stick to it’s current format and limits for up to six months, and after this time will be switched to their new rules.
The company will offer a free 30-day trial of Spotify Premium throughout May, but it’s likely more people will go for the ‘Unlimited’ package, should they decide to upgrade.
Unlimited –
No advertisements
Unlimited streaming of music
£4.99 per month
Premium -
No advertisements
Unlimited streaming of music
Spotify on your mobile
Offline mode for playlists
£9.99 per month
As the saying goes, you don’t get anything for free. Spotify is known to be a very good service, so maybe it’s time to reach in to your pockets.
Changes will take effect on 1st May.
Mobile shopping has proved a successful venture for retailer Debenhams leading the company to announce that their app, once offered exclusively on the iPhone, will now be available on a number of smartphones.
In October 2010, the department store became the first retailer to offer the fully transactional app to iPhone handsets, allowing users to shop on the go. Since the success of the app and online sales increasing by 82%, the retailer are now offering the app to both Android and Nokia users.
Head of Digital Development, Harriet Williams, had the following to say on the development, “Our iPhone app has already seen 2.4 million shopping sessions with 110,000 customers using the app more than five times. Launching on the Android and Nokia platforms opens Debenhams mobile shopping to another millions more customers, bridging the gap between the high street and Debenhams.com.”
The app includes a ‘Barcode Scanner’, which uses the phone’s camera to take a picture of the barcode, enabling it to automatically check prices and reviews.
Customers can also take advantage of exclusive products and offers by looking out for the special codes in Debenhams advertising and store windows.
Currently there has been no announcement on when the application will be made available to Blackberry users, but if the retailer really wants cater to all shoppers, it would be best not to leave it for too long.
So, what are you waiting for? Download the app and get shopping!
There’s been trouble in the Digg offices for a while, but is the announcement that founder Kevin Rose has stepped down the final nail in the coffin?
Digg was launched in 2004 and was an instant hit. The site allows users to submit stories which can then be digged by other people and is split in to different categories including Business, Entertainment, Gaming, Lifestyle and Technology.
As numbers slowly started to fall, the company announced in 2010 a complete redesign, explaining that the entire site had completely changed and had effectively been rewritten.
When the changes went public it caused a backlash from Diggs dedicated users who complained that the site was no longer user friendly. Since then, numbers have dropped dramatically as users look for the next big thing.
As of late, Kevin Rose hasn’t been very active on his Digg account, which caused many people to question whether his time at the company was coming to an end. This was confirmed by Kevin himself via Twitter, whilst also announcing he would be unveiling his new startup in the near future.
Unfortunately this looks like it could be the end for Digg. The company are failing in their attempts to stop the rot, and it doesn’t look like there is a way back for the once popular social news website.
Vodafone recently announced that they would be releasing the Vodafone Webbox, which allows your television to become your web browser.
The device, which is actually a keyboard, plugs into your TV and allows internet access instantly. The keyboard comes equipt with a RCA connector,which can be found on most television sets, and with a Vodafone SIM card inside. The device runs the Opera Mini 5.1 browser and has a GPRS/Edge modem, with the 3G version hopefully not too far behind.
The company hopes it will allow people in developing countries to access the internet without fixed-line Broadband. The fact that you don’t need a PC and can use your existing television to access the internet means that Vodafone could be on to a real winner, especially in the emerging markets.
The Webbox will hit the South African market first under Vodacom, the African mobile telecommunications company owned by Vodafone, with others following suit throughout the year.
First of all, its a stylish keyboard and won’t stand out in any living room. The downside? Speed. This is not the product for users who are constantly browsing and streaming media as it will struggle to keep up; although it’s perfect for simple browsing and checking email.
With countries such as Africa were there are many homes without internet access, this is the perfect and cheaper alternative. However, the company may find it harder to break markets such as the UK, as people now expect high internet speeds.
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In web development, Comet is a neologism to describe a web application model in which a long-held HTTP request allows a web server to push data to a browser, without the browser explicitly requesting it...
