Money-AU Australian Finance Site Accepted by Google News
One of our first big builds for the Australian market was the finance site money-au.com.au which features the leading finance providers that run affiliate programes and enables users to, amongst other things compare credit cards and also check out the latest finance news which we publish 4 times a day during the working week.
Great news for us and our writing partners Adfero is that we have been accepted as a source by Google news which means our content is now syndicated to Google’s global readership. So you can now see our articles published next to some real big hitters such as the Times, and in the example below, the Calgary Herald.
It’s great news for us as our site can now be judged as an authority site and this will hopefully mean increased repeat visitors and somewhere down the line more people using our site to purchase finance products.
Twenty Twenty Cricket Courtesy of Npower and Affiliate Window
Sunday saw the Northampton Steelbacks and Glamorgan Dragons go head to head in 20 / 20 (not the teen drink) cricket action and we were lucky enough to get a pair of free tickets courtesy of official sponsors npower which we thankfully received from the guys at Affiliate Window (cheers Owen).
Talking of windows, we were actually stood under the one which was smashed by a huge hit by Glamorgan’s Herschelle Gibbs, who scored 98 off just 45 balls. Luckily our stunned expressions were caught by the Sky Sports News team, which made me spit my tea out at breakfast the following day!
A big crowd caught a spectacular game in beautiful weather with Northampton posting an imposing score of 207, with opening pair Rob White and Niall O’Brien putting on 103 without loss. Glamorgan came out of the traps slowly with both openers Robert Croft and David Hemp both falling in the same over. Herschelle Gibbs then entered the fray but his Herculean effort was not enough to overcome Northampton’s massive total, with Steelbacks South African all rounder Andrew Hall taking 5-29.
Our first taste of 20/20 cricket was an excellent day out. There’s a real mixture of supporters attending, from the very young to the very old, and the action is constant and absolutely spectacular. You see more fours and sixes in 5 overs than you sometimes see in a 5 day test, and I for one can’t wait to go back and sample more of the same, not to mention the Tetleys and Magners!
Facebook and Justgiving provides old school friends a way to fleece you (but make money for a good cause)
Facebook has got a lot to answer for. Not only does it reduce the productivity of certain members of staff in the VM (and DGM, eh Cat?) office, but it also offers a way to get in touch with people you haven’t spoken to for years. Guess what, if I haven’t spoken to you for over 10 years, there’s probably a good reason for that eh? Anyway, I received 3 donation requests from old school friends who are doing various athletic events for good causes - all you need to do is make a donation via the Justgiving website to help support them.
Never a man to shy away from a bit of charity work I’ve just made my donations, but one in particular made me smile. A lad I haven’t spoken to since school sent out a message to his 120 odd facebook friends saying that if everyone donated £1 via Justgiving he would match this. Just a pound for a good cause I thought, why not. Clever thing is the minimum donation is £2 which you only realise half way through the order route and by the time you get that far it would be churlish to stop. So well done mate and good luck with your fun run!
Just so as I don’t sound like a cheapskate I did donate more to the other people as I have actually spoken to them in the last year (and one is one of my best mates), but good luck to all of them and their charitable causes.
Venturian Media Website Relaunch
Venturian Media have relaunched our website to recognise the fact that we now operate on a worldwide basis. Our old site had been live for over 2 years and neglected for much of those - much like the old adage about the gardener and their own garden, we’d spent so much time developing web sites that we’d forgotton about our own!
The new web site has a blog (which you’re reading!) which will enable our contributors to talk about news and comment both in and out of our industry, and hopefully let you know a bit about our business and the people who work here.
That’s all for now, we’ll be looking to add more posts over the coming weeks and months - I’ve already made the team swear an oath that this won’t be one of those blogs with several posts a week for the first month or so which then falls to a post every quarter! We’re aiming for a post every other week and anything else will be a bonus!
The other promise I have made myself is to try and cut down on my (over)use of exclamation marks! I’ve just counted 5 in this post so I’ll have my work cut out.