27 Oct 2009

Voucher Alerts for leading online electronic stores

According to Experian Hitwise, there has been in increase by 47.5% in UK Internet searches for discount vouchers over the last 12 months till August this year. Not surprising considering the current economic climate.

If you have started thinking about your Christmas shopping, visit Voucher Alerts for the best deals on buying electronics and gadgets online. Voucher Alerts is a leading online UK discount code directory and I am really happy to announce that I have entered into a partnership with them to bring you the best deals on buying electronics and gadgets online.

For your information, they provide voucher codes for over 2500 leading online stores including Amazon, HMV, Play.com, Tesco, GAME, Currys, Debenhams among others.

If you want to be updated whenever discount vouchers are available for your favourite online stores, just signup with Voucher Alerts - their free service. All you have to do is pick the stores you want to be notified for and you will receive custom emails with the latest voucher codes. Remember that many vouchers are only short term and this is a great way to make sure you never miss a deal.

Here is a full list of electronics voucher codes from the top electrical stores.

Free Nitendo Wii games from Amazon

The two free games from Amazon finally arrived on the 20th last Tuesday. It was a bit of a hassle - I had to pay for them on the Amazon.co.uk site and they refunded the money back.

I just hope they make it clear that two selected games are FREE with the Nintendo Wii Console with Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus Controller (Wii).

You have to click the link 'Special Offers and Product Promotions' to take up the offer of the two free games but it is really easy to miss. I did miss it and had a bit of a hassle talking to various customer service people. They allowed me to order it separately but I made the mistake of following the steps written on the page and ended up ordering another Wii console. I was supposed to order only the games and they would have refunded me the sot of the games.

I finally received the free games and I sent back the extra console but looks like I have to pay for the return charges.


The games are  'Trauma Centre: New Blood' and 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes'. I haven't had the chance to try them out yet. Will be reviewing them later here.

21 Oct 2009

3 Trending Topics game on Twitter. Join in

I am still on Twitter but just realised that the initial fascination I had with this amazing social networking medium has somewhat dimmed. I have now Crossed 2K followers on Twitter but I am tweeting less.

While going through the trending topics, I realised that there are a number of creative guys who were using them to form interesting tweets. I was suddenly excited and thought why don't we start a game.

All we have to do is use any 3 Trending Topics to form a coherent sentence. Use tag #3tt

I just posted one up:

"Here's the first one. Magic Mouse is playing Russian Roulette on Halloween #3tt"

Can you think of something creative using the trending topics?

18 Oct 2009

Amazon does mean it when they say "We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company"

I am amazed and delighted.
I knew that Amazon.co.uk's customer service is good but I never knew they were THAT good.

Anyway, following my latest email to their customer service (read my previous post), I received the following reply today:
Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your enquiry concerning the promotion on the item in the above order.

I have reviewed and found that this order is a qualifying purchase for this promotion.

For all questions regarding eligibility, we encourage you to view the terms and conditions listed online at the following URL:
(url)

In this case, as an exception, I suggest you to go ahead and place a new order for the qualifying games listed in the above mentioned link and write back to us with all the new order details and we would be happy to issue a refund for the total cost of the new order.

Please use the following link to write back to us:
(url)

I promptly went to their site and picked 'Trauma Centre: New Blood', which costs £16.74 and 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes', which costs £29.99 and I will get both games for FREE (total savings of £46.73). Yeah!

Just noticed that they have further reduced the price of the Nintendo Wii Console with Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus Controller (Wii) by £10. It is now £169.99. Damn, should have waited for a few days.

Anyway, I just checked on Argos and they are still selling the Nintendo Wii at £179.99 but they are including the Wii Sports Resort with Motion Controller, Super Smash Brothers, Mario Tennis and Wii Compatible Mega Accessory Pack for free. A bit of a limited choice of free games as compared to Amazon and it's all a bit confusing as you have to click the special offers tab to take advantage of the offers. People who are not too savvy with the Argos site might miss the offer altogether. Moreover, I couldn't find Mario Tennis listed anywhere, even though it's on offer.


UPDATE (20 October, 2009):
My two free games -  'Trauma Centre: New Blood' and 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes', arrived today.

17 Oct 2009

Reply from Amazon.co.uk Customer Services about the Wii

I wrote to the Amazon.co.uk Customer Services regarding the missing games. Please refer to my previous post: 'Unpacking the Nintendo Wii'.


Hi,
I just bought the Nintendo Wii Console with Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus Controller (Wii) for £179.99. The console has already arrived and we are really happy with Amazon.co.uk's service.

I only realised that the two free games (as offered on your site) were missing. I had chosen FIFA 10 (Wii) by Electronic Arts and Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes (Wii) by Activision. However, I had not paid attention when I checked out and realise that they was not on my receipt as well.

Do I still get these games or do I have to pay extra?

Hoping to hear from you soon.
Thanks and regards,

I got a prompt reply back from Amazon.co.uk Customer Services today:

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

We are sorry to hear of the difficulty you experienced with this offer. We do have the following offer available on the website; Nintendo Wii Console with Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus Controller (Wii) and Fifa 10 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes for £239.97

I have investigated your order and found that as you did not follow the steps associated with the offer, your order did not qualify for it. In order to avail of this offer, you needed to add both Fifa 10 and Star wars: The Clone Wars to your basket.

You are welcome to return the item in accordance with our 30-day returns guarantee. Please visit our Returns Support Centre to be guided through our full policy and to obtain a printable personalised return label.....

No! I don't want to return the console. I am really happy with it and I don't really need the other two games. All I am interested to know is whether I can still get the "two selected games" for free.

Have already sent them an email clarifying my question and eagerly waiting for a reply. Even though it was my fault, it would be nice if they could send me two games (after all it was part of the offer).

16 Oct 2009

Unpacking the Nintendo Wii

Our Nintendo Wii console finally arrived yesterday. I had bought the Nintendo Wii Console with Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort and Motion Plus Controller (Wii) from Amazon UK for only £179.99. It is a present for my daughter who celebrating her birthday soon and as a reward for doing great at school.

For your information, Amazon has slashed prices of the Wii like crazy. The normal pack that comes with Wii sports is now only £139.99 (from £179.99). I took advantage of this great deal which includes the new Sports Resort game which comes with the Motion Plus Controller. Plus I also get two other games for free. That's savings of more than £60.

Unpacking was like opening a babushka doll - there was box after box inside.

First box
Wii01

Second box
Wii02

Third box
Wii03

And two more boxes inside
Wii04

Not very eco-friendly I guess but I am so happy on finally getting my hands on the Wii that I don't really care much. Some hard core gamers to get the XBox or the PS3 but I want something the whole family can play together with and I can now understand why the Nintendo Wii appeals so much to families. It is something that brings the whole family and friends together, something that you can play along with your kids and still enjoy and it has in fact brought the game console out into the living room.

However, there is some bad news. I was supposed to choose two games for free and I had selected Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes (Wii) and FIFA 10 (Wii). But somehow while going back and forth, I must have unchecked them or something, I obviously didn't add them when I checked out. I only realised it today and I was like "where are my 2 free games" and found that they were not on my receipt either. I have emailed Amazon's customer service and am waiting to see what they say.

The Wii MotionPlus accessory which attaches to the end of the Wii Remote totally blew me away. And according to Nintendo "allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player's arm position and orientation providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion". I totally agree.

Anyway, now on my shopping list:

What are your favourite games on the Nintendo Wii?

14 Oct 2009

LG's Touchscreen Watchphone LG-GD910


Here is something out of sci-fi movies. When we were kids, one of my favourite comic heroes was Dick Tracy. What we loved about him were the gadgets, especially his watchphone.

Now LG has come out with exactly that. They first unveiled the LG-GD910 at the CES 2009. It is the World's first commercial Touchscreen Watchphone. It features a 3.63cm (1.43-inch) touch screen, 7.2 Mbps 3G HSDPA compatibility, built in camera with 3G Video Telephony (VT) service and GSM Quadband Network capabilities

The Watchphone has a curved tempered glass face, high quality metal casing and is only 13.9mm thick.

You have to use a Bluetooth headsetto make and receive calls even though you can use the phone without it. I would imagine useing the buit in speaker on the phoen to be quite difficult to use. I think it would be uncomfortabel to use the speakers on the phone.

Other extras include an Voice Calling, MP3 player and Text to Speech.

In the UK, you can only get it from Orange for £500.



Visit www.orange.co.uk/watchphone for more info

13 Oct 2009

The new Nokia N900

I am really looking forward to the new Nokia N900 which runs on the open source Linux-based Maemo 5 software. Nokia says that it will deliver a PC-like experience. The phone features a high-resolution WVGA touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and fast internet access via 10/2 HSPA and WLAN.


The N900 will be powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 processor, with up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration. The end result is one of the most powerful mobiles around and blurring the line between mobile and computers.


The panoramic homescreen can be fully personalized with favourite shortcuts, widgets and applications. Software is updated automatically over the internet.

The Nokia N900 has 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card. In case you are wondering about the photography capabilities, the
phone has a 5Mp camera with Carl Zeiss lenses.

The Nokia N900 will be available from this month in selected markets with an estimated retail price of EUR 500 excluding sales taxes and subsidies.

Click here for more information on Maemo.

10 Oct 2009

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010

Just wanted to highlight an event which be of interest to marketers reading my blog. The MarketingSherpa’s 5th annual Email Summit 2010 will be held in Miami, Florida from January 20-22, 2010. This is their largest and most popular event.

The events seeks to help marketers expand their opt-in marketing skills across email, social media and mobile marketing.

The keynote speaker this year is Joseph Jaffe, a well known consultant and speaker on new marketing. He is the President of crayon, a consultancy company. He will be launching his new book 'Flip the Funnel'. All attendees will receive a free copy.

This month, readers of my blog can take advantage of the Early-Bird Specials (offer ends Oct. 31).
1.$1,295 on the price of Email Summit ticket. You save $400.
2.$1,891 on Email Summit bundle package. You save ave $600.

Click the banner below for more information.


9 Oct 2009

Google Wave invite

No! I don't have any invites.

It's really maddening as I keep on reading about people getting invites to the latest craze to hit the net - the Google Wave and I don't have one yet. I really don't have any idea what it's all about other than that it's a web service merging email, social networking, instant messaging and a Wiki.

Right now it's a limited preview service and if you are already in, please send me an invite.

Anyway, if you want to learn more, here are some clips about the service:




Watch CBS News Videos Online

7 Oct 2009

Google and bar codes


Don't be surprised if you went on the Google page and thought that you had gone to a wrong place. Google has changed it's logo today to a bar code. I guess it is to commemorate the fact that today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code (source).

Apparently, it just says "Google". Were you expecting anything else?

Anyway, I also found out that Google has a open source barcode project of it's own called ZXing which it says is pronounced "zebra crossing". They also have an online QR code generator.

5 Oct 2009

QR Code generating software


This is my blog's QR Code. This is a two-dimensional symbology which was developed by Denso Wave in 1994. It is an improvement on the widely used bar code as it is easily read and contains information in both the vertical and horizontal directions and is really popular in Japan.

You can download the trial edition of QR Code/Bar code generation software on the Denso Wave site or you can generate your own QR code at Kaywa.com.

If you want to read QR codes, all you need is your mobile (with camera) and the Kaywa reader. Just download the reader, scan by taking a picture and you then get the info on your mobile. Haven't tried it myself but according to some reviews I read on the net, including here and here, it's quite good.

4 Oct 2009

Online advertising expenditure overtakes TV

According to a recent study, online ad expenditure has overtaken TV for the first time in the UK. This is quite remarkable considering the fact that the overall ad spending has contracted due to the current economic climate.

The UK Online Adspend Study Results for the half year to June 2009 was carried out by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC). FYI, the IAB is the trade body for digital marketing here.

The study shows that internet advertising grew by 4.6% to £1,752.1 million. It was revealed that most marketing budgets went to Paid-for search which was growing. This made up £1.1bn or 62.6% of all online advertising expenditure.

I wonder whether this growth is due to the fact that Internet advertising is much cheaper/ cost effective than offline advertising in traditional media.

For more detailed information visit the IAB site