Thinking of booking next year’s summer holiday? If you are a heavy mobile user you may want to make sure you travel after 1 July 2014 when a new ruling - voted for last week by the European commission – will see an end to roaming charges within the European Union, across all 27 states.

Breaking down barriers is the aim to create effectively a single mobile market. With many of the European mobile providers operating already across a number of countries, previous opposition to a complete bar on roaming charges was finally overcome this week, bringing an end to the often crippling charges incurred when needing to use a home-charged mobile abroad.

Detailed plans are yet to be announced but you can probably expect the mobile operators to look at other ways of covering the ‘loss’ they will suffer, with conservative estimates suggesting roaming charges currently make up around 2% of their revenue. Expect some of that to be taken up with takeovers and streamlining as the big boys look to cover the full European market which currently has around 100 operators.

Have you ever been hit by massive roaming charges? Share your woes with us

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Jonathan Brealey is one of the key figures in the UK hosting market over the past decade, starting his career in the industry in 1997. At this time Jonathan realised that even though the Internet was becoming increasingly popular, web hosting services were predominantly technical in nature. Jonathan and his brother Tim set out to change this with the launch of 123-reg and Webfusion in 1997.

After seeing both businesses grow rapidly, Jonathan and Tim identified reseller hosting as an undeserved and stagnant market they could tangibly improve. On this basis they then moved on to launch Heart Internet, which has constantly raised the bar for reseller hosting leading to it being named the UK’s fastest growing internet company in 2009.

Given Jonathan’s knowledge of our industry we took the opportunity to sit down with him to get his views on what help and advice he can offer to help fledgling entrepreneurs grow their own successful businesses.

The first question that we asked Jonathan was just how significant the decision to set up 123-reg has ultimately been in opening up the internet to entrepreneurs who may have been put off by the price of domains back in the late 1990’s. ‘In 2000, domains were a bigger story. 123-reg was, and still is, all about buying online. 123-reg was an instant success. The reasons we were competitive on price was because we wanted to build large market share. We were not hooked on profit. 123-reg was making money but our main aim was to make 123-reg the number one choice for domains which it clearly is today.’

Setting up one thriving business might seem daunting to most of us but the fact that Brealey has set up three successful businesses in 15 years makes him an authority and a respectable individual to absorb knowledge from. It is Brealey’s opinion that with every venture you undertake, the business person behind it becomes stronger. ‘We have done things differently at Heart than Webfusion, and that is normal. Of course, we have made mistakes, but business is a constant learning cycle.’

For Brealey, the tools for success of any business are inside the entrepreneur. ‘Anybody wanting to do it has to be serious about it. You have to believe in what you are doing. Key to this is you have to be prepared to change. You will start off being the guy who does everything but as you grow; your staff will end up doing things that you were once doing. You have to accept that people do things differently.’

While success may come at a price, Brealey believes that owning your own thriving business is what should ultimately motivate a businessperson. ‘It is not just about financial rewards. Building something that people respect is the ultimate. Heart has an incredibly loyal customer base and we have a lot of brand advocates who are passionate about what we do. That keeps everybody motivated here.’

What any budding entrepreneur can take from Brealey’s story is the passion that is needed for each customer. ‘It may sound like a cliché but nobody knows what we should be doing better than our customers. I genuinely want to work with our customers because it has a two way benefit. I can’t tell you just how many things we have done thanks to direct customer feedback. We aim to make customers lives significantly easier.’

Brealey’s advice is not simply for those who are looking to set up their first business. In the opinion of the entrepreneur, people are continually gaining knowledge and should always look to the future. ‘Second time around you have experience of doing it before, and that is enormously important. I have also learnt a lot building Heart Internet as well.’

Brealey does feel that there needs to be a more positive view of entrepreneurs that might not get it right first time round, something Brealey believes could be holding people back. ‘One of the things I think is a real shame in this country is that when a business fails, it is seen as a real failure. In the United States things are far more positive. They seem to have the view that if you fail and come back, you will probably get it right second time around. I much prefer that style.’

The prevailing message is that young entrepreneurs need to go for it, be bold, exhume passion and success is achievable. ‘Anybody wanting to do it has to be serious about it and you have to believe in yourself. I certainly had a number of people along the way that I relied on for advice. Go and seek somebody like that out.’

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Tonight England takes on Sweden in their second game of Euro 2012, hoping for their first win in the competition. With iTunes applications there is now no reason you should miss any of this intriguing matchup, nor any of the rest of the tournament.

We all know that the mobile phone app industry has boomed in the past four years. There is a lot more to the competition than just watching the games live. Whoever you are supporting in the tournament, these five great i-Tunes applications will keep you up to date with all the happenings during the tournament.

Whether you have iPhone, iPad or an iPod touch device you need never be away from the action. With Euro 2012 in full swing, 123-reg brings you what we feel are the five best iTunes mobile phone apps for the tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

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Trying to collate user information for Facebook and Twitter can be slightly tricky at best. If for arguments sake we accept that Facebook has in excess of 750 million users and Twitter has just recently passed the 100 million mark, we can say with a large amount of confidence that these sites command a great deal amount of respect as online communities.
Furthermore, according to research from Basekit, 36 per cent of UK businesses are using Facebook to attract new customers, making it a more popular tool for advertising than the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local.

So we have established that social media is big and that in itself is a rather obvious statement. So, where is this going you ask? There has been considerable research into how people log onto social media sites in recent years. US digital world measurer’s comscore report titled “2012 Mobile Future in Focus”, gives strong insight into the changes in behaviour we have towards social media and our hand held devices. The report highlighted that in the US there were more than 400 smartphone devices on the market. Furthermore, 2011 saw the smartphone market overtake normal handsets in Germany, France and the US joining the UK and Spain which achieved this feat in 2010.

Given the fact that smartphone penetration grew at least 8 percentage points in the US and the five strongest European economies in 2011, I would suggest that it is the development of smart phones that have allowed social media sites to gain the edge I online marketing rather than anything ground breaking from Facebook or Twitter.

Hardcore fans of such social media sites would scoff at this. I suggest that they would point to the fact that smart phones have developed new technologies so that users can have easier access to social media. I accept that in recent year’s large phone manufacturers have been judged by consumers on how well they connect to social media but it is still my belief that the smartphone market is driving social media interactions. Would people be as engaged with Facebook if they were no longer able to access it on the move? I will allow you to forge your own opinions on that but I would argue interactions would decrease at some rate.

Although most analysts would refute that the desktop/laptop PC market was dying out, new methods of interacting are constantly evolving. As this evolutionary process continues, social media will grow.

As tablets develop and become more affordable, it is likely that in the coming years these devices will provide a challenge for the PC and laptop manufacturers giving grounds for the growing argument those users want to access social media on the move.

People want to interact with social media on the move in 2012, which is obvious. As a greater number of small businesses place an importance on social media in relation to marketing campaigns, this can only seriously take off if smart phones and tablets become more affordable.

So as smartphone brands are now tasked with rebranding and becoming life necessities, there is serious room for a budget smartphone to dominate the space. Nokia, once the world’s leading mobile phone provider, last month announced it would unveil its new budget smartphone, the Lumia 610. In China, a country that boats the largest percentage of smartphone users, the country’s largest search giant, Baidu, launched its first budget smartphone.

Whether we accept that smartphones have driven social interactions or not, what is clear is that people want to use social media on the go. It is the wrong strategy for companies to only sell from 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday. If the cost of smartphones does begin to decrease, the potential customer numbers online and engaged with social media is potentially astronomical. Social media sites have of course benefited from this but the real winners have and will continue to be small/medium sized businesses.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below and follow us on Twitter here 

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Image source: icelava

Nowadays we no longer depend on a PC to check emails, interact on social networks, check flights, and shop online. We can do that and a lot more with a mobile device, and we can do it no matter where we are – in a bus, in a store or in a coffee shop. When it comes to the web and mobile devices, there’s no longer a space limit. But there’s definitely a time limit – if we’re looking for information, we expect to find it immediately, if not sooner.

This is where frustration comes in. There are few sites that have a version designed for mobile devices. Just imagine how frustrating it is to access a site and instead of being redirected to the mobile version, you have to navigate through the desktop version. This means scrolling, zooming, scrolling and zooming again. If it’s difficult to get around and find the information we need, than we just give up and exit.

Mobile is not desktop

Designing for mobile is not like designing for desktop. It’s a bit more complicated because it’s all about sacrifice. You will be forced to remove a lot of content and keep your message clear and simple.  This means that if there is content that you can take out and still get your message across to the user, then you should have no problem removing it.

When it comes to designing for mobile, you must stick to the content and navigation that makes it easier for the user to get around and find what he needs fast. The keyword is simplicity – take advantage of the little space you have available to squeeze in only the relevant information.

Now that you realise how important it is to design a mobile version for your site, here are some more specific things to consider:

Starting from scratch?

That is usually the first question that you ask yourself: should you use your desktop version and convert it or should you just create a mobile version from scratch? We suggest you use a sub domain of your main site. This way you can get insights in to your visitor’s behavior on your mobile site and optimize it accordingly.

Find out more about your visitors

Before removing any content, it’s better to find out first what information your visitors are looking for on your site. Gather some insights from them (using a poll might be a good idea or just go through your Analytics account) so you can decide how to organise your content in order to give them easy access to the areas of your site that they’re visiting the most and remove the ones they’re not interested in.

Focus on navigation, not on a pretty design

The most popular screen resolution for smartphones is 320×480. This means that you have to be smart about the little space you have available. Keep design elements to the minimum and make the navigation simple so they can find their way around easily. Jakob Nielsen, the user interface guru, says that “when everything is prominent, nothing is prominent”.

Using a 3 elements simple page structure can’t fail: header with your company logo, body with a short description of a post and a footer with contact details or other relevant information about your site. Try to get passed the pretty design elements because an attractive design not a priority, but an easy navigation is!

Don’t make them zoom in

Make sure to optimise the navigation in order to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to go through your site. For touchscreen devices, pay extra attention to the clickable areas – links and buttons. These have to be big so people can easily click on them without having to zoom in.

If in doubt, cut out

Cut out as much content as you need and only leave that information that is relevant for your visitors. At the beginning of your research, you have managed to determine what your visitors are looking for on your site – that’s the information they need and that’s the one you have to include. Find our more about writing for mobile.

Using images

Images take up space and considering the little space you have available, it’s better to leave them for the desktop version. However, you can use images but only if you believe it would reinforce your company’s message and make it more powerful.

Test it over and over again

Once you have finished designing and implement your site’s mobile version, start testing it on as many mobile devices as you can to see how it look and moves. This is something you would need to do constantly to ensure there are no issues and that everything is displaying correctly.

What are, in your opinion,  the most important things to consider when designing for mobile?

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As it battles to retain a hold on the mobile phone market Nokia has announced a deal to offer free wi-fi in London. Partnering with Spectrum Interactive, Nokia is to launch a two-month trial of a free wi-fi service in central London. If the trial proves successful, there are plans to extend the service in early 2012. With the Olympics and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2012, London is expecting record tourist numbers and with the majority of those expected to be part of the smartphone generation, WiFi will be a key asset in attracting customer loyalty.

Under the trial scheme Nokia has set up 26 wi-fi hotspots mostly concentrated around shopping areas in the West End of London and mainline rail stations. Users of the service will not need to register or sign in to the hotspots be located on public phone boxes owned and operated by Spectrum Interactive. To avoid abuse download speeds will be limited to a maximum of 1 megabit per user but more than enough for users to stay in touch via email etc.

Free wi-fi services are already widely available in London but usually within privately-owned buildings and frequently requiring payment for a service or product from the business hosting the WiFi signal. Often they also require sign-up to an account by a third-party operator, sometimes ‘free’ actually meaning purchase of a limited amount of data usage.

Other plans for free WiFi in the capital, including via the London Underground, in time for the London 2012 Olympics have been mooted but Nokia’s move is the first to go live.

Do you ever use public WiFi? If not, what puts you off?

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Wave after wave of reports indicate to us that the UK population are using their mobile phone to access the web an every increasing amount. Now however official government figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) prove it too.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of Internet users accessed the Internet via a mobile phone in 2011, according to new data released by ONS this week, and the figures keep rising. That figure is already up from 31 per cent last year and 23 per cent in 2009.  Younger users are leading tha push with 71 per cent of 16-24 year old Internet users having accessed the internet via a mobile.

Despite some mobile providers clamping down on mobile data usage, the availability of public WiFi means more and more data is being used on the move. The report estimates 4.9 million people (13% of internet users) conncected via WiFi hotspots this year, double on the previous year.

Don’t believe the reports of social media losing its appeal either. The report shows 57 per cent of adult Internet users used online social networks in 2011, up from 43 per cent in 2010. Again the 16-24 age group dominates the sector with 91 per cent of 16-24 year old Internet users now using social networking sites.

Yet there does appear to be a digital divide. 77 per cent of households report having access to the Internet, up from 73 per cent last year, with 93 per cent of these accessing via a broadband connection. Interestingly, half of those without a household Internet connection said they didn’t have one because they ‘don’t need the Internet’.

Other government dats shows that in the second quarter of 2011, 8.73 million UK adults had never used the Internet. That is down 12,000 people since quarter one with the over 75s least likely to have been online. Interestingly, over one-third of disabled people (36.8 per cent) also say they have never been online.

Are you accessing more than before? How do you most often access the web?

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Addicted to using your smartphone?

I have to admit I have had the odd complaint at the family dinner table after finding myself checking for that all important email as my phone buzzed (at least it was on silent), and the latest survey from Ofcom suggests I am not alone.

I even fit into the seventy per cent of smartphone users who admit to taking work calls while on holiday or annual leave. In fact I’m probably in the 24 per cent who admit to doing so regularly – compared with just 16 per cent of ordinary mobile phone users. Yet, I don’t think I am addicted – despite what other members of my family and friendship group think, I just think technology has changed the way the world works. I admit the dining table is probably moving into the realm of bad manners, but emails don’t always arrive at convenient times and sometimes their timing and dealing with them can be very time-specific in a business sense. Particularly in the media world that I earn my corn from.

I am an information junkie, always have been. In years gone by, I would be the one getting ribbed for reading a literary classic or non-fiction book on holiday – even an encyclopedia once. I like to be in the know, and if I am not, I like to know that information is never too far away. That’s probably why I also like gadgets, things that make some of life’s adventures just that little bit easier. So, I carry two smartphones. Two different operating systems, two different numbers. It used to be one for work, one for personal calls, but over time people learn both numbers and it has all sort of merged into one. It does mean I can choose the pick of the apps though for each phone.

On that last point, I did hold off playing games on my phone for a long while. Trying to keep it purely functional, I remembered the wasted days (and nights) from my time as a student when I fell victim to absorption into games like SimCity and Age of Empires. Yet, I did give in. I wanted to find out what this Angry Birds thing was (very addictive, I can now confirm). At first it was a few games to keep the kids quiet, now I have a whole screen (and some) of word games, platform games and just downright silliness. Not that I have much time to play them – I am usually too busy dealing with my emails!

So, I don’t think I am addicted, but then what addicts do? What I do know is that I have yet to find a waterproof smartphone, and am not convinced about putting my normal smartphone in a rubberised bag imported from the far east for under five pounds. That means that on the odd occasion that I am without my smartphone in my hand I am probably swimming or in the bath – although I did recently see a smart-panel that could be installed in bathrooms that ran Android apps….

Coming back to the report from Ofcom, the headlines elsewhere have all been about the break-up of traditional social activity, infringed by smartphones. Yet, the most interesting findings were actually the ones that truly declare us as a digital nation. 76 per cent of households are now connected to the internet compared to just 25 per cent back in 2000. 91 per cent of people now own a mobile phone, compared to just 36 per cent back in 2000.  Plus sixty per cent of households now own an HD-Ready TVand 46 per cent have a digital video recorder (DVR).

A decade ago the mobile phone  was seen as the addiction set to wreck the way we lived our lives. Now we see it as an essential that helps us live our lives more conveniently as ever before. Just as the smartphone is coming under attack by some of the media, so the traditional mobile phone faced the same and overcame it.

Are you addicted to your smartphone?

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A new look for Google’s Android Market should make finding a suitable app easier and more logical so they claim – but as yet it is only available in the US.

A complete redesign takes a leaf from the iTunes store, making popular apps more obvious for visitors “In the home screen, we’ve created a new promotional page that highlights top content ….[and Providing] instant access to featured apps and games,” said Eric Chu in a blog post on Android Developer.

It certainly is very different in look from its predecessors. The changes having been made “To make it fun and easy for users to explore fresh content” explains Chu, there’s even “Trending lists”.

The design is clearly tweaked to allow users to download or purchase apps quicker than the earlier incarnations of Android Market that we had had to grow to love.

This video will give you an idea of what, where and how – even the video has a very Apple feel to it.

Yet, at the moment it is the US market only able to benefit from a more sane interface. Chu’s blog advises “We’ve already begun a phased roll-out to phones running Android 2.2 or higher — the update should reach all users worldwide in the coming weeks.” Look out for it.

Have you got the new look market yet? What are your thoughts?

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