The Barsley Brief

Geeks.co.uk has popped up on my radar several times in the last few months.  I first came aware of the site after a couple of their posts popped up on the social bookmarking site Digg.com.  Soon after this while researching my Dragons Den posts I found Online Dragon Shaf Rasul from the online Dragon’s Den had invested in Geeks.co.uk.  Finally just the other week Geeks.co.uk announced that they had brought in 7Thingsmedia to “implement a branding and commercial strategy which will support the site in realising its ambition to become the most popular lifestyle gadget site in the UK.” 7Thingsmedia is managed by Chris Bishop one of my former work colleagues.

So I thought it was time I took a closer look!

Geeks.co.uk was formed in July 2009, it was around this time that online Dragon Shaf Rasul invested in the company.  Shaf has become well known after starring in the Dragons Den online den where anyone can pitch a video to him asking for investment.  He has an extensive portfolio of property and technology investments and is no stranger to website investments, which include Vuru a social networking site for entrepreneurs and Boffer a daily deal website.

Geeks.co.uk is run by a team of eight writers, who test and review the latest in gadgets, tech and games.  The site is split into News, Lifestyle, Gadget reviews, Game reviews and forums.  The site is quite an intuitive blog / magazine layout with the main page featuring the latest stories and the categories displaying a “feed” of posts in chronological order.

Site review

Clearly the site is still finding its feet, it has a message in the header saying it is in development and to report any issues, the design feels quite basic and at odds with it’s geek audience, I would have expected something more polished, also I found the drop down menus were very temperamental on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 – If I hover on one of the menu choices such as lifestyle but then move the mouse down to click on the menu, the menu disappears before I can click.

The articles are well written, I particularly enjoyed the “Geek World” articles such as “The top 50 Geekiest TV Shows” – a classic Top xx list which provokes debate and conversation in the comments stream.  If your wondering I only watch 20 of the top 50 – though I could name a few shows which should make the top 50!

Equally the game reviews were good for giving an unbiased look at the pros and cons of the game.  However I was disappointed by the gadget reviews I read, this is where I think the concept of the site is at odds with itself, the site is called “geeks” but the content is very mainstream, if I am a Geek I know where to find the best niche sites for all “geek reviews” eg AV forums is a brilliant resource for TV reviews and indepth details, but the geeks.co.uk reviews that I read didn’t even contain a full list of features.

I was also confused by the forums, there was a forum thread for every post, this left me confused, should I leave a comment on the post or should I write in the forum?

Overall though I think the site is fantastic for one that’s only three months old, there is obviously a lot of growth potential and in just three months they are already receiving an estimated 4,600 visits a day.  Obviously they still have some way to get to the traffic level of wired.com and engadget who I would consider their competitors, but I would love 4,600 views a day on any one of my sites!

However once I sat back and forgot about the word Geek, I realised it’s a really fun site that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and while still small I can see it building a great community of constructive and engaged fans in the forum, whereas some other sites you feel scared to comment for fear of sounding stupid!

Charles’ 3 things

If I were running Geeks.co.uk here are three things I would do (partially with my consumer hat on and partially with my eCommerce / monetisation hat)…

1. Become an affiliate – Most of the posts on Geeks.co.uk relate to a specific product or are a top 10 list (which tend to drive most of the traffic to sites through social media).  I would become an Amazon affiliate and link to those products on Amazon or other sites and make a small commission off of each sale – eg Top 10 Cameras, or Top 50 Geekiest TV Shows, link to the cameras or link to the boxsets, your readers will actually like that you are providing more information and a means to purchase and won’t mind / won’t know that you are making a small commission.

2. Revisit the site template design – there are a few frustrating things like the drop down menus not working which need to be sorted out now while the site is small as they may prevent users from coming back.  (since writing this I have interviewed 7Thingsmedia Managing director Chris Bishop (see below) and discovered that this is also at the top of their list to do.

3. Don’t have a forum thread for each article, this is what the comments are for, having a forum thread aswell only confuses me as to where I should post, but the forum is great asset to see what your users are interested in and discussing to help form future posts.

Interview with Chris Bishop of 7Thingsmedia

As I previously mentioned Chris Bishop founder and managing director of 7Thingsmedia is a friend and former work colleague of mine, so when I heard that 7Thingsmedia had been brought in to boost the Geeks.co.uk Media strategy I asked if he’d be able to answer a few questions.

Can you tell us how you came to be involved with Geeks.co.uk?

It was via a personal referral to BBC Online Dragon, Shaf Rasul.  He was passed my details and we’ve starting discussing several of his projects including his own businesses and some of his investments one of which was his investment in geeks.co.uk.  A flight to Edinburgh, a speedy transfer in a Aston Martin and a quick meeting with Shaf plus the wider team led to us all agreeing on a set plan to achieve our goals.

Geeks.co.uk has strong competition from other sites such as Wired.com, and more specialist sites such as AVforums (in my opinion), what do you think differentiates it and makes it stand out from the crowd of geeky / tech blogs?

Our initial objective is to create a fun consumer resource that allows every day gamers and gadget users to create fun debate on the gadgets and technology we use very day.  The website is in its infancy at the minute, but we are looking to quickly scale this with a goal to become a lifestyle portal and the most successful of its kind in the UK.

We are thriving in the early commentary and feedback from our early adopters; we always aim to reply and want to build a platform that will empower our audience to fully engage in their interests – the aim is to create a trusted news source with a knowledge opinion mixed with a dash of wit, charm or an element of a stand out experience – we are all aware to be successful it’s for our users to fall in love with us, not for us to sell it to them!

You’ve been brought in to “head the strategic development of the magazine” what does this mean?  What does it encompass?

Geeks.co.uk is the first website property on the books at 7thingsmedia and part of the advantages of being a digital start-up is the degree of agility the business can have.  We are onboard to set the online marketing and commercial plans for the website – we are currently in a process of making recommendations to the team and starting to build the ties with various media agencies and directly with brands.

Naturally the aim is to build a profitable trading website to ensure the online magazine can become a set above the rest in its genre – both in it’s reach and quality content, whether that be basic style & copy or new technologies such as augmented reality.

Can you give us a sneak preview of anything coming soon?

Our first priority is to review the current skin of the website therefore we are currently reviewing version 2 of the site and aiming to release a new look shortly with the aim build the geeks.co.uk brand, improve the community elements and customer experience whilst offering advertisers a range of opportunities linked to our members’ interests and passions.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

The one area which we love at geeks.co.uk is participation and discussion – I’d personally love to see a Charles Barsley article and/or a Barsley Brief reader writing an article for the online magazine or involved in a passionate debate on the forum – we are all know the web is the perfect vehicle for the joining of opinion and also discussion – so I’d to welcome the floor to all consider a contribution and contact Ally – ed@geeks.co.uk with your idea.

Thank you Chris for taking the time to answer these questions.  I look forward to seeing version  2 of the site, and continuing to read the great articles, you never know there might be a Charles Barsley article there one day, if I can just find something inspiring to write about.

You can check out geeks at www.geeks.co.uk

I’d love to hear your thoughts of the site, this review (my first site review) or any other sites you think I should look at and review.  Please leave a comment.

These are my web picks for November 30th through May 13th:

• Welcome to Windows 7 – Microsoft have just published the Release candidate of the next version of Windows. "Windows 7" Anyone is able to download the release candidate with a free one year license. I wouldn't recommend it for your main PC but looking forward to giving it a go on another!
• Ron Dennis stands down as Chief Executive of McLaren Racing – McLaren today announced that Ron Dennis would stand down as chief executive officer and hand over these responsibilities to Martin Whitmarsh who will take this on in addition to his role of Team Principal of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.
• All about Vince Flynn – A website for my favourite Author Vince Flynn. Great to find out more about the books or news on upcoming books and Movies,
• MONTY PYTHON GOES TO YOUTUBE! – You can now watch official clips of Monty Python on You Tube!
• Dragon may bid for Woolworths – The BBC has written that Theo Paphitis is interested in bidding for part of Woolworths. It seems now that Woolworths is destined to be split up and sold off but it would be great if some of the stores could be rescued and continue to trade under the Woolworths brand name.

  In other news http://www.woolworths.co.uk seems to have ceased trading. This is such a shame, it is probably too late now but handled right it surely could have sold for a great deal of money, or been converted into a recommendations engine to continue selling just without the stock investment.

These are my web picks for October 22nd through November 17th:

• Facebook Birthday Reminder Service – I'm in too minds about this. One – If you need Facebook to remind you of someones birthday are they really a "friend". But on the other hand it is frustrating to find out the day of the birthday (if you don't check Facebook everyday) or worse miss it! Facebook now have a Birthday reminder service which sends out a email a week listing all upcoming birthdays. Click for the facebook blog to find out how to set it up.
• BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts & Culture | Antiques Roadshow finds £1m Angel – This link is a follow up to an original BBC news article telling of a £1m find by keeping what it was under wraps. A interesting piece though while I enjoy of occasion a little antiques roadshow on in the background I felt the original article was a little misleading. The Antiques roadshow has not had a £1 million find. It seems that they knew long in advance what it was worth and asked the council to bring it along. If it had been brought to them by a random member of the public it would have been a different matter, but while asking the council to bring it made an interesting piece on the Angel of the North announcing it as an Antiques Roadshow find doesn't seem in the spirit of the show – which in my view should be the public bringing in items which the presenters are not aware of until they arrive.
• Viral Video Chart – "Star Wars" – an a capella tribute to John Williams – This is brilliant, with a computer you don't need a barbershop quartet you can just record yourself 4 times! One guy's fantastic a capella tribute to Star wars.

  Also if you are a fan of Viral Videos the Viral Video Chart is a great place to see what's hot each week!

• Star Trek The Movie – The new Star Trek Movie is in production and a trailer will shortly be released (There is already a bootleg on You Tube). This is the eleventh Star Trek movie which returns to Captain Kirk and the original Enterprise. The teaser trailer shows the Enterprise being constructed and the trailer shows a young rebellious Kirk. Directed by JJ Abrams it will be very interesting to see his take on the Star Trek Franchise and how he can move it forward and keep interest in it. With no current running TV series this film needs to be a success!
• Police officers given talking petrol caps to stop ruining engines – Telegraph – What can I say, has it really come to this that the Police need a talking diesel cap. What ever happened to low tech low cost solutions like a sticker!

I have been thinking for a while that I should look to develop my own website to try and add value to the web.  One day as I was looking for a Birthday gift for a friend I came up with what I hope is a great concept.

I was frustrated that to find a present I only go to the same two or three stores looking for inspiration.  How do I know that there isn’t something better out on the Internets or a better price for the same item.

So I thought what if you could do all your gift shopping in one place.  While there are other large price comparison websites I thought it would be a great idea and way of developing my web design skills to create Gift SOS a website dedicated to helping you by the perfect gift be it for Christmas, Anniversaries, Birthdays or well anything!

It is a simple principle.  Rather than going to several websites and having to have multiple windows open to compare products I have aimed to provide it all in one place.  I have partnered with several well known companies (and several less well known but great niche companies) to put all their products directly onto Gift SOS.

Above is a picture of the homepage.  From it you can search for a product using the search bar.  Or I have created several Categories which you can use to narrow down your search.

Currently their are approximately 60,000 products listed from 40 retailers!

Once you are in a product page you will see a larger image of the product, description and pricing and importantly most products show the top 5 similar products.  I think this feature is invaluable.  If other retailers offer the same product, you can see straight away who has the best deal.  Or you can see similar products, great if your seeking inspiration or want to know what else is available.

When you come to buy a product you are taken to that product’s page on the retailers website so you can buy direct from them.

To give you a flavour the site currently includes, chocolates, Experiences, Flowers, Fancy Dress, Party Supplies, Toys, gadgets, Home accessories, Wine and Champagne, 2009 Calendars, Electricals to name just a few product areas.

Like I say I am finding this a great project to find out a bit more about how the internet works, html, design etc.

I would love to hear any comments from you with regards to the site, what did you find most useful, development ideas or product / retailers you wanted but couldn’t find.

Try Gift SOS here

You may have seen my last post and thought 5 random links…  What are they there for!

Well I’ll tell you.

I have signed up to delicious – What is Delicious?

Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows you to tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet.

For me this means, whatever computer I am on, if I see something worth sharing I can instantly add it to my Delicious bookmarks and then share them with you here using a wonderful plugin called Postalicious.

Postalicious allows me to completely customise when my delicious links get posted to the Barsley Brief.  Currently I have set it to post a new article when there are a minimum of 5 new links as long as it has been atleast a week since the last post.  (However I haven’t quite got it working yet)  If anybody knows why it isn’t updating every hour I would be grateful if you could tell me the fix for this!

What will I link to

It will be a mixture, everything from a website I use everyday, software I have used for years (eg Digiguide),  A interesting news article, Right down to just a silly video to brighten your day.

I already had some links when I first installed Postalicious.  As these were older than Postalicious it didn’t pick them up, so here they are.  If you have any links worth checking out let me know!

• Digiguide For Windows – UK and Ireland desktop TV guide for your PC providing 14 days TV listings for over 500 channels
  

  - The one TV and Radio Guide I’m never without. shows a grid of what’s on TV, you can tag your favourite shows or keywords to never miss them again, set reminders, search forwards and back. Your not limited to a week either, some channels have a month of guides, usually all have at least two weeks. What’s more only £9.99 a year, you’d pay that for two months of the radio times! TRY IT FREE FOR 30 DAYS

• Secret WW2 tunnels up for sale

  - Secret tunnels under Holborn in the heart of London are on the property market as BT prepares to market one of the capital’s most unusual properties. The Kingsway Tunnels are a around 1 mile long, about the length of 14 football pitches, and were originally built in 1940 as air raid shelters. They have been used by MI6, the Public Record Office (PRO) and BT, and are now surplus to requirement.

• GiftSOS

  - Whenever I am looking for gifts for friends I come straight to Gift SOS. Why go to individual retailers when you can see all the options in one place!

• The TWiT Netcast Network with Leo Laporte

  - I’m a big fan of podcasts, my only problem is finding time to listen to them all, as a result I am constantly subscribing and unsubscribing from different podcasts. One though which I have always remained subscribed to is TWIT – This Week in Tech, this is the original podcast from the TWIT network. Hosted by Leo Laporte (an American Tech journalist / TV and Radio Presenter) it is a round table discussion of the latest technology news. Always an interesting listen with great guests, good stories and ramblings! A must listen.

• Cool Bus Stops around the World

  - Another Marketing post! Don’t I realise I’m a merchandiser!! This time of a blog which specialises in top ten lists of oddities. Not always good but a great top 10 of innovative bus stops. Some like the IKEA or Quicksilver ones really stand out as promoting a brand identity. Others like the one in Dubai are functional.

• YouTube – experiencewii’s Channel

  - I thought this was a really innovative use of YouTube for viral advertising. Not sure what the games like mind you but I know I have been telling people to check out the trailer! I won’t spoil the surprise here though!