Jonathan Davies

I’m terrible at getting things done. Literally. I put things off, I get distracted and go off watching YouTube videos and get lost in time. In fact the only way of making myself do anything is by creating a seriously strict plan with timings and goals to reach - this tends to work quite well but sometimes I wonder whether I should be doing some of these things if I don’t feel inspired to.

Moving along…

Currently, I’ve been pretty good at keeping my RSS feeds up to date. I have started to make an effort to read more and pay far more attention to the posts. I don’t subscribe to many feeds at all (compared to a lot of the blogosphere) but lately I have been especially looking into writing blogs.

These either focus on writing on the whole, i.e.. grammar and producing writing that reads better and is also more enjoyable to write. Hopefully you’ll start to see the effect these are having over time, preferably positively!

I’ve also started to read a lot more blogs on blogging. I think there is a wealth of information out there on better SEO, attracting advertisers and making blog posts that people will actually want to read and get something out of.

In fact, this topic has really caught my eye, and I want to learn as much as I can about better blogging and also have a way to share this knowledge. Watch this space.

Canada 2008

As you may be guessed, I’m back! I had a really great trip to Canada and did some really exciting things varying from white water rafting to flying in a biplane.

I also got some fantastic chances to take some photos, and you can see the best in this Flickr set.

So much stuff is happening so fast, and already I’m going away again for a few days, this time with no chance of getting on the internet. I’ll take the camera and hopefully get some nice shots though.

PS: I have no idea why I have called this post Rubbish

Tomorrow I set out on my holiday to Canada and more specifically Ottawa. The main goals for me in this holiday is that I: one, explore a bit more into photography - I’ve heard that there are some great areas around Ottawa, especially Parliament Hill to take photos. I’ll be armed with a D80 and snapping everything I can. And secondly to relax: I’ve got a load of things planned for when I get back - some I can’t really talk about and some I just don’t want to yet.

One of my deepest regrets is that I am not spending enough time producing content for this blog. I know I keep saying I will be writing more and not much has come of it…

I have been thinking of branching out a bit; maybe talking about things I wouldn’t normally care to mention. However I will not let this blog simply become a news website - frankly I think a lot of you would prefer a no blog posts than repeated ones that you can find anywhere.

What would you like to see from the blog?

On another note I’ve written an article for Desktop Vibes that I’m quite proud of: Five Reasons Why You Should Use Google Docs. I’ll also be having another article of mine published sometime tomorrow.

Even with the release of Firefox 3 I still remain an avid Safari user. Why?

Because when I was using Firefox 2 I was bit two many times with it crashing on me over and over again and it using to much in the way of system resources. I didn’t use any extensions (I don’t feel I found any that I really need to use or enhance my computing experience exponentially).

Yes, I know Firefox 3 has changed all of this, but still. I have no need to. Safari does everything that I need and more. It’s faster, looks better and has better integration with the OS.

It’s a simple reason, but they’re simple problems - sorry Firefox but I’m not about to switch today.

I know a lot of you probably think I’m wrong, why?

Apple as of late have starting working with lots more companies to bring a better experience to its users. They’ve worked with Google on integrating YouTube and Google Maps into the iPhone. Yahoo! have also helped integrate some of their widgets into the iPhone.

There has also been an advent of rumors that Apple is working with Google to add live video streaming to iTunes as well.

An interesting idea which has pushed me to talk about how the tech industry especially, are starting to collaborate a lot of their products. Why would they do this?

Increasing awareness is a major factor. Having that name in the search box every time you want to search is a big selling point. I wonder how much Google pays Mozilla to have their search as the default search in Firefox ?

You’ve also got to think about the people that you are trying to reach, maybe you want to go into a new market where making a brand new product wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead you could confer with another company with a strong product already in that market. Sure, the initial cost might be great but if people start to recognize you as a player then half of the work is already done.

Integration is great for consumers, if they can do something with one app instead of another two others they’re happy. It’s a simple message but can be a lot harder to put into practice.

When you go buy an iPod, do you buy it because it is great at what it does or because its an iPod? Its the same with computers; do you buy a Dell because they’re reliable or because everyone you know has one?

Brand matters.

Consumers rarely care about what they buy because of what it does, you can have something that does more than an iPod for a better price, they don’t care - people will still buy the iPod because everyone has one and they are the cool thing to have. I mean, you don’t pull out your new Zune to show everyone on the school bus do you?

A strong brand means you have a better relationship with the consumer, half the work is you promoting yourself to 50% of the people you encourage. The other 50% of the business you get is because the people you sold to liked your product enough to tell someone else about it. That is how you get a household name.

The hoover, for instance. You might not realize it but the correct term is vacuum-cleaner; the brand hoover has become so recognized that it becomes the name, even if you buy a Dyson.

Unfortunately for most people starting out in the product business; if there is already a massive leader (lets say Microsoft in OS software) there is very little chance that you are going to unseat it in your own life time. To build up your brand you need to innovate and let people know about it! There are probably thousands of great websites and blogs out there that no one knows about but are doing amazing things:

Do them a favor and tell your friends about them, just once.