Amusing on the Daily Show yesterday regarding the BP oil spill. The emergency disaster mandate that seems to be circulated between the large oil companies has a contact listed named Dr Peter Lutz who has been dead for five years.

Completely shocking that this has never even been picked upon.

When I started using the Internet long ago now I made some great friends and a few special people got close to me. I can remember staying up until strange hours of the night talking to people, exchanging photos and talking via the web. Over time I built some fantastic relationships with people around the world but some seem to have stuck in memory more than others.

Sometimes people become a part of your life in ways that you can’t explain. Decisions can be made by either party that sever those ties for good. I don’t think you can ever realise whether it was a good idea or bad one to do that. I can only hope that I’ve made the right choices in the ties, feelings and dreams that I chose to sever. Only time will tell.

There is an emerging trend that local business won’t be able to ignore for too long. At the moment, all the rage with mobile devices seems to be location based services and games with Gowalla, FourSquare and Yelp being the primary platforms although Facebook is to launch its own version shortly which may comprise of an amalgamation of all three. These platforms reward users with points, prizes and badges the more they ‘check in’. I haven’t had chance to test out Yelp more yet, so I’ll exclude that from the results below.

There are a few subtle differences between the two platforms, which I’ll detail below. I’ve found that most people seem to use both Gowalla and FourSquare. At the moment, I’m leaning more towards being a Gowalla permanent user. I’ll outline a few differences with the platforms below.

The way in which people interact with business has changed. The entire customer service model is slowly changing and those who do not update their methods and ways will be left behind. In the US, the adoption of FourSquare and Gowalla has been picking up rapidly whereas in the UK its seen a slower adoption pace. One thing is for definite though, if you decide to provide offers to your customers/users of these services then you will drive traffic to your business and promote a better reputation with the digitalrati of the modern age.

This can provide to be key in the way in which your business is viewed. Trendy coffee bars in town centres are interested in seeing how they can use Gowalla and Foursquare to promote their business better. Promoting via one of these online services is like word-of-mouth on steroids. It’ll quickly get around the services and attract new people when they see their friends at your business.

Cafe's in the larger cities have already started offering free coffee and a muffin for the Mayor of thier location. Believe me, no one will refuse a free muffin.

I often write about things that I find interesting here in my journal. However, for a change I’m going to write about something that has really begun to annoy me. Public transport is a brilliant idea. Bus and rail are both better, cleaner ways of travel that are often cheaper than car travel. All those plus points are ruined quite often with the foul mouthed, anti-social and disrespectful people from teenagers to adults.

It saddens me that in this day and age people don’t refrain from using appalling language throughout their journey and respect the people around them. When I was younger and even now, my parents taught me to respect my elders. I was also taught to give up my seat to an older person or lady if there were no others available and I have technically a disability with my hip. These customs seem to have gone. Parents no longer seem to teach their children proper morals and manners when it comes to being around other people.

I think anyone using foul or abusive language throughout public transport should be dismissed from the vehicle, or at the next station in the case of a train. It would soon set them straight.

In January this year when I first undertook the Tweekly.fm project in ran in a very different way than what it does now. I’ve completely rewrote the code base that the system works from. It now runs a lot faster and we can support more users than previous. I now run both statistics for Twitter (tweekly.fm) and for Facebook (laststat.us). The past few days I’ve pushed changes out that change the way the system interacts with Last.fm and how we store your data.

A major change in the way the system works has been added. Instead of providing your Last.fm username to us now we use the Last.fm Webauth (very similar to OAUTH in fact) to interact with your Last.fm data. Even if you protect your data within Last.fm we can collect and publish your data for you (should you wish to do so). Protected user support is now live within the Facebook application and will be coming to the Twitter version very soon.

The larger problem that we encounter now is capacity. We’re taking on average between 280 and 550 new users per day. Over our platform we currently sit at just over 55,000 users. The entire platform is being financed independently by me which isn’t the best form of business model. Simon and I have discussed recruiting for venture capital but to do that we would need to develop a sound model to work from that could provide a return on any investment. Anyone interested in discussing this, please get in touch.

Hi Scott,
Really glad you emailed, as I didn't have any details to send a thank you, we love Steve and his mates, and such a lovely surprise to receive on a dreary Tuesday morning! If we feel a bit stressed we give Steve a squeeze and then all's well with the world, it's better than cake.

Thank you, again.

Regards,
Jane, Justin, Sandra, Iran, Luke, Sam, H, Ian & Sophie.

I received this email the other day, after we sent down Steve and some bits 'n bobs to the wonderful Pinky Murphy's café in Fowey which truly should be one of the wonders of the world.

The system of rewarding customers with points, cards or discounts is a fairly standard practice amongst today's modern business. This reward model is based around rewarding for purchases of goods and services and then allow these customers to choose a gift in return to reward their loyalty. The existing implementation are this reward network is singular in nature except for organisations such as Sainsbury's nectar.

I believe that modern customers would be more beneficial to a system that was shared between businesses and then allowed the customer to take reward points to another company should they wish to do so. Providing the spread of reward was equal or near to equal over all participating organisations, then this model would be extremely beneficial to the customer who may for example not wish to have a gift from shop A, instead choosing a gift from shop B.

The new age innovations that customers have access to such as the Internet, mobile phones and smart phones provide rich platforms for interaction with business. Devices such as mobile phones or smart phones that have Bluetooth could be registered against a user record and then through transmitters in store, promotional adverts or messages could be delivered via OBEX push when the user is nearby, as shown in the diagram below.

The transmitters shown above would be looking for known Bluetooth devices. Of course this would only happen if the handsets were configured to allow OBEX items to be pushed. Alternatively, an email could be sent to the user (taken at opt-in) with discounts coupons for that day. Bluetooth’s proximity would allow tracking up to around 10 metres for most handsets which would be close enough for interaction. This would then drive customers to pursue interesting offers and lead to more sales.

In the diagram below, relationships are displayed in colours so that it makes it easier to indicate what they represent. The yellow arrows show the relationships between a customer or group of customers and the businesses that they frequent. The purple arrows show the intranet-based or Internet-based link up to a central system. The blue arrow and read our indicate a link between the customer of being at home or on a smart device and interacting with the central system. This could be to engage in choosing a reward gift or simply updating their account details.

This system would also allow for flexibility and grouping users so that they may work together and obtain larger gifts. The biggest challenge in implementing a better, more advanced system would be gaining the participation of the larger organisations from which people choose to purchase their goods from. I do honestly believe that gap could be bridged then it would not be too far from the future to implement such a new system.