— Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

Wish I’d thought of it (and then I’d hate myself for it…)

People spot the coupon code part of a purchase form and decide to look online for a coupon code. More often that not, the retailer has never offered coupon codes, or only did so years ago. Which means the search is fruitless, but worth a go. I do this, so I am sure many others do.

There are many sites that list coupon codes, but they only list actual, real, current or recent codes.

The art of this scam is to show up in the search engines for coupon codes that never existed, but people still vainly search for. This is from the founder of Kogan.com, who found that no matter how much he lowered his commission rate (even to zero), sales seemed to still come in:

1. Someone comes to Kogan.com and finds a product they want to buy.
2. They add the product to cart and start to checkout.
3. At checkout, they notice a “Discount Code” field.
4. They open a new tab and Google search for “Kogan Discount Code.”
5. They click around the various affiliates who claim to have a “Kogan Discount Code.”
6. When they visit the affiliates, they drop a cookie and tag the user as coming from that site.
7. They fail to find a discount code that works and come back to Kogan and finish their checkout.
8. Because the affiliate tagged the user, their reporting system claims that they referred the sale.

There are some people out there earning 7 figures from very little work, at the expense of merchants with affiliate programs.

The problem with famous folk interacting with their fans is that it is one-way – they do, we receive.

FanBox is 2-way. Fans have a sandbox where they can submit anything (within reason) to the celeb. The submissions can be thoughts, ideas, images, sounds… The can be public or for the celeb only. The celeb can ignore them all, or browse and experience. If they like something, they can respond privately or publicly.

The beauty of this idea is that fans will be inspired to contribute because of the mere possibility the celeb might see what they contributed. Because it is the official channel, it is possible the celeb will see what they provided. By occasionally interacting, the celeb will encourage more from their fans.

Problem fans can be permanently removed, and true fans wouldn’t want to risk that. Serial pests can be removed from FanBox altogether.

It won’t be long before we are reading our news on tablets much bigger than 11 inches. They will be thin, light and quite likely bendy for those that want to roll it up (like a newspaper!)

I would like an app that takes up the full screen, with a column down the left that shows the headlines:

Of course colours can be changed, and the headlines could be longer, or have a second line of info.

Above the headlines would be a dropdown box for selecting the category of news (or all) I want to read.

To the right, when you click on the headline, will be a paragraph or dot point summary of the news item – along with one pic if there is one. For me that would be sufficient most of the time:

• Weighs 4.3 kilos at birth
• Kate is well
• Name is yet to be announced
• Still in hospital
• England is celebrating

And below that would be a button to click on for the full story. That story would take up the entire screen. Swipe it to go back to the headlines and summary.

I think it is obvious that, for me, knowing if a story is factual or not (or a mix) is important. As well as knowing how old the story is, and if the headline is referring to an update to an ongoing story.

Behind the scenes I would like to rule out types of stories that I don’t want to read. For example, some I would choose:

• Car fatalities involving less than 5 people
• Third-world tragedies where less than 200 people die or 1000 are directly affected
• Political opinion pieces
• Funerals
• Somebody is about to go to trial
• Jury is deliberating

I forget where I read this, but basically if you come across someone on Facebook who you like, you can “follow” them. But if you are strangers to each other, there’s unlikely to ever be a real social connection, because it would be creepy to ask to be their friend.

My daughter recently changed primary schools. One of her tactics to make new friends was to take toys to school, like her La La Loopsy doll. All she had to was play with it and others who liked that kind of toy would come over and ask to play with her. She didn’t even have to say anything… Too easy!

So how can you break the ice with strangers you might want to befriend online – show them your toys!

1. Follow someone – see their updates to whatever degree their settings allow (already exists on FB)

2. Someone with followers can allow the followers to show them their toys – to be added manually rather than as part of an automatic feed:

Playlist on Spotify
Purchases
Books being read
Blog posts
Photos

3. If they like anything that was shared, they can share back or comment on what was shared, instantly creating a shared, private sharing area.

4. It would add an extra level of being a fan of someone famous, if there was the possibility that they would look at your toys and perhaps even comment back.