It’s an intriguing situation and one which begs the question is it right for one company to impose censorship on another? It’s not the first time we’ve experienced this kind of thing. Many “work censors” block access to Loquax under the “gaming” element.

Yet you can’t play games on Loquax.co.uk!

The only issue is that we do have channels for casino and bingo on the site – but to play you must go to another site. A bit like searching for “casino” on Google or popping over to MSN’s games channel or even following the links to “win prizes” on Daybreak – which has bingo links on it.

And guess what!

O2 don’t block any of the above! I can search for casinos on Google, join the bingo fun from the MSN games channel and be shown the links to Daybreak bingo as well from ITV’s website. If I can do all that, then why are O2 censoring Loquax?

I also checked some of the main bingo portals just to see how they’re treated. Interestingly Bingoport.co.uk and indeed most other sites of that ilk caused the Over 18s message to kick in, but WhichBingo.co.uk – the site that says it’s the “largest online bingo directory in the UK” didn’t! Of course all links out were censored.

Of course O2 will argue (as will some readers here) that they’re protecting their customers and it’s better to be on the safe side. But I like fair play – censor for one then censor for all. It’s hard enough to run a site and build a brand as it is without extra problems to deal with – like your users not being able to access your site.

So come on O2 – why the inconsistency and how do sites put forward their case that they are in essence only providing information for people online – the over 18s stuff is actually taking place on other sites outside our domain.

By the way, if you do get the censorship message you can unblock the restriction with your credit card. They’ll charge you £1 for the pleasure, but give you £2.50 back off your bill. Silver lining I guess!

Simon Chadwick at Ceratopia took on the task of the transformation, with the understanding that the logo couldn’t change colour or deviate too much from the original version. Simon did a few roughs and managed to create the look we were after in his first few sketches.

    

All discussions with Ceratopia were via email and I have to say Simon was brilliant. He quickly picked up what we wanted and in almost all cases went above and beyond expectations. For example we asked Simon to produce some seasonal variations of the logo (e.g. Christmas etc). We expected something like we had done ourselves, but got something infinitely better.

St George’s Day…

    

St Patrick’s Day…

    

Other seasonal variations, duck expressions, twitter buttons, facebook buttons and various duck icons have also been designed.

All the work has been of a high standard and the cost reasonable too. We actually spent more than we expected as we kept adding to the initial order as we were impressed with the designs. As is we now have a high quality graphics set that can be used on site and also to create some Loquax branded items. Whilst we loved our old logo (and the old duck will remain in homage on OneLittleDuck) the new design and additions, we have, allow us a lot more options.

Any change on a community site, especially a logo, will be met with some protestations. We’ve done a forum upgrade before and matched colour schemes verbatim, and still got complaints about the colour changes we’d introduced!

Anyway, yes we did encounter a few people who immediately hated the new logo, but the general consensus was positive. The response to the seasonal variations has also been good. Many sites add a bit of frosting to their logos at Christmas, but few do anything else. We’ve found that it adds a bit of character to the site and is often appreciated by regular visitors.

All in all we’re really pleased with the design and also with Ceratopia. We have no hesitation in recommending Simon and his company (follow him on Twitter! So a massive thanks to them and also to Darren for the initial recommendation.

Ceratopia!

The basic way to deal with multiple accounts is simple login/logout and switch user ids. This has some major drawbacks! A bit of banter tweet under the official account may not go down so well with some people – so it’s important to check that you’re on the right account before hitting send.

Fortunately some clever people have come up with some tools to help you deal with multiple twittering accounts.

Initially, thanks to Graham Keen I tried Matt – Multiple Account Twitter Tweeter. It’s a good looking site and easy to use, although by the time I remembered that I could use the tool, it was actually easier to logout of Twitter and log back in. I also found that your tweets are delayed before being twitted. Another drawback was Matt doesn’t show you the current twitter output so it’s not that useful.

Step forward Keith Bond who I saw had mentioned Splitweet. A broswer based multi account manager – and initial signs are pretty good. Not only can you twit for multiple accounts you’re also able to see tweets you follow for all accounts (or selected ones), any brand mentions you want to check (e.g. comments about your site) and any direct tweets too. It’s a well thought out service!

And just when you think it can’t get any better – Splitweet will automatically update with any new tweets and alert you too. The only thing really missing is a search twitter option!

Multiple Twitter accounts are actually easier to manage on the iPhone. With Twitterlator (paid version) I’m able to switch accounts and see new tweets and updates at the touch of a button. On the recommendation of my business partner, Kirsty, I may take a look at Tweetie.

However, all these wonderful tools don’t solve the biggest problem I’m having with multiple accounts. The instinct is still always to head straight to Twitter – let’s just hope I can remember which account to use.

Feel free to follow Loquax and One Little Duck!

Get your fool right and it could mean a nice bit of traffic for your site – get it wrong and it may mean your users are heading off to your competitors. By getting it wrong I mean don’t use anything like “we’re closing down” – you just don’t want to fool people so much they don’t come back!

Getting it right is of course a bit of a tricky one.

Coming up with something as ingenious as Penguins Flying (below) or The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest takes some serious planning (and you’ve probably not got much time for that right now). However, despite taking place in 1957 this fool lives on in infamy and a bit like a Christmas Number 1 guarantees public interest at least once a year.

Back in 1957 they didn’t have the internet which probably helped the quality of the fool. Nowadays if you launch a good well thought out “fool” at just after midnight on April 1st, seconds later someone will post/reply/comment with the legend “we know what date it is”. It could mean your well crafted idea hits the skids before take off, so disable replies or change moderate comments on your blogs at least until midday.

So where’s One Little Duck’s fool for 2009?

Unfortunately a “brilliant” idea of previewing our first ever TV commercial based on O2′s March of the Ducks hit a major snag! Our cheap (very cheap) version of the advert didn’t quite work out as planned. A video of one duck, a kitchen sink of ice, a Pooh Bear Disney pool and a Spanish river just didn’t quite come together in time. It was canned well before we got to the Sean Bean voice over impressions.

However, we’ve now got 365 days to think up something else!

OK, Red Nose Day is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s an opportunity to have a laugh and raise a few quid for charity – and in these credit crunch times we could all do with something to brighten up the gloom!

It doesn’t take 5 minutes to create a fun logo and there’s a whole bunch of images you can use at Red Nose Day 09. Or you could simply put up one of these Red Nose Banners. iTunes on Tradedoubler have a number of special Red Nose banners too to promote their Music Relief event meaning you could earn commission! Even better give it to RND 09!

If you’re not that way inclined why not get a digital red nose and add it to your blog photo?

How cool would it be to see a whole gallery of affiliate bloggers (or just affiliates) complete with red noses!

And let’s face it, a couple of images on your own photo or website logo has got to be a lot less painful than having a Hpops tattoo to raise money!

Finally if you’d like a nice new premium wordpress theme then Peter Coles is giving away his new Tempest theme to the next handful of people who make a donation. Well worth a look!

Perhaps it’s because people don’t feel it’s necessary?

Most certainly there’s no website owner type media pack on Poppy.org.uk to encourage site owners or online businesses to promote this worthy cause. It’s not like they’ve not embraced new technology either as they are web savvy enough to include a Facebook application and email add-on in their new ways to support.

By simply adding a small poppy to your logo for just a few days, you’re helping to remind your users of Remembrance Day as well as demonstrating your own support.

Surely that’s got to be a good thing to do?

Don’t blame me if you don’t get much work done today!

Update : I’ve removed the viral game from the site because the music was getting annoying every time I visited the blog. For free content it’s pretty good, but Killerviral need to have a tag in so that the music can be switched off!

Hello, I am interested in purchasing your website loquax.com and if you want to sell it, please give me your phone number, so I can call you! I have cash to buy today! If you are interested, please reply to pierre.xxxxxx@gmail.com as soon as possible. Thank you in advance

What do you mean it’s not genuine? It looks so professional!! LOL!

Still it beats an approach we had last year that cited Gordon Brown as a good reason for us selling up. I’m sure there was must be sound business reasoning behind what they suggested though!

Guess we’ll be holding on to the mighty duck for another day then – and that’s no bad thing! ;o)

Problem users are the biggest hassle!

Spammers and seedy marketeers are easy to deal with. They come along, dump their spammy posts and usually vanish forever, however problem users tend to just hang around.

There are ways and means of dealing with them and sometimes they’ll take on board a slap on the wrists or a temporary ban.

However, kicking them out and removing their access to your site is often the final solution. Although, that leaves them free to then go and complain about you on other sites:

As ever it’s not the posters fault they were banned! It’s the “arrogant siteowners” who “don’t deserve to run a website”! Fortunately most people will see through this is (sadly some won’t).

However, it can be incredibly annoying seeing ex-users of your site (try to) tarnish your brand (or even you personally) whilst forgetting the culpability of their demise from using your service is entirely on their shoulders.

Running a forum isn’t an easy option!

Now there’s stats everywhere and already GA has thrown up some stuff we didn’t realise (mainly because we’re lazy and didn’t bother checking before). Popular landing pages have been updated where needed and hopefully that will start paying dividends.

Sites which we thought were doing ok (they weren’t) have also had a bit of a going over based on the excellent wordpress duplicate content penalty fix by KirstyM.

This is perhaps something we should have done a long time ago – but it does go to show that even old time affiliates can be lazy, not take advantage of stats and information available and essentially wander around in the dark running a website. Perhaps not the best plan for newbie affiliates to follow!

Despite this half-arsed attitude we’ve managed to do ok, so perhaps armed with a bit more information and stats we can improve in a number of areas.

So why start using stats now?

The reason is we probably can’t work any harder and in order to do better commission wise we have to start working a lot lot smarter. We now need to know what works and what doesn’t and tailor our efforts accordingly.

In retrospect it sounds insane that we never started out this way!

Let’s see if having our eyes wide open and armed with more stats improves conversions and commissions.