Web 2.0: Buzz but not hype | Internet Marketing News and Blog | E-consultancy.com

A panel of industry experts, brought together by Conchango … have convened to debate the issue of the latest buzz phrase Web 2.0 [at a] roundtable titled ‘Web 2.0: Marketing hype or the second coming of the internet?’

Internet Retailer launched today and it’s my pleasure to be the launch editor. The first editorial and newsletter are now out. The conference information is now also available. The magazine will be launched at the conference.

Internet World 2006I shall be speaking with Joris Beckers of Fred Hopper on “Guided Selling: How Europe’s largest online retailers sell more online”. This is at 1030 on 11 May in the Internet World Theatre.

I shall be in The Hague on 10 May with Shell International BV’s Communications team at a workshop on Web 2.0, presenting and then facilitating discussion. Very much looking forward to this, as well as seeing the seaside town of Scheveningen and the impressive Kurhaus Hotel, a Victorian splendid beach/bathing hotel and the venue for the Rolling Stones’ shortest ever concert in 1964. Apparently!

What’s New in Online Marketing | Events | E-consultancy.comWNIOM is a fixture in the annual e-marketing calendar and this year’s event is on 7 June in London. I’m pleased to be speaking alongside so many good speakers. The session is on ‘web 2.0’ and its relevance to online marketing.

Speaking with Joris Beckers of Fred Hopper at TCD2006, an event in Utrecht focusing upon eCommerce and contact centres.

The session is on increasing conversion rates in online retail, using dimensional browse tools.

The LDA have announced that Serco have been selected to run the capital’s small business support unit in a three year deal worth £60 of public funding.

Business Link for London Limited (BL4L), the not for profit company established to deliver the DTI’s Business Link service, tendered for the contract but was not successful.

BL4L in its time created the first regional Business Link Operator, bringing coherence the the capital’s business support and harnessed some £40m per annum in public support for business and enterprise development.

In 2004 the DTI undid the Business Link structures, leaving the central team as ‘strategic guidance’ and devolving accountability for the Operators to the Regional Development Agencies. The current strategy is to move away from direct delivery of business support, intervention and advice and towards a “brokerage” model, offering ‘information, diagnostics and brokerage’ – a sort of Citizen’s Advice Bureau for business, if you like.

This approach sees a reduction in the amount of public and EU money deployed (now c£20m per annum) but hopefully a leveraged effect which will benefit private sector business support providers.

It’s appropriate that a managed service specialist be selected for the contract and BL4L will deliver on the plan for 2006-7, completing its operations and handover.

BL4L has not as yet commented publicly on the LDA’s decision and this post does not represent BL4L’s or the Board’s view.

On March 22nd I shall be giving the keynote at the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Marketing Annual Conference.You can see details of what promises to be an interesting day at the DMA’s website or in this pdf flyer.

Update: My presentation slides are available here (880k, pdf)
Download file

Revolution Web SiteI was invited as a judge to the Revolution awards for the best in digital marketing and business.

Ian Jindal was today elected a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS). The BCS is the industry body for IT professionals, and a Chartered Engineering Institution for Information Technology (IT). With members in over 100 countries around the world, the BCS is the leading professional and learned Society in the field of computers and information systems.