Fresh off the success (or not, in my case!) of the HeadRed Clay Pigeon Shoot-off, the team here are donning flame-retardant boiler suits in abundance and are off to Mr.Karting in Harbury for some Go Karting action.

The event takes place on the 22nd October and is being run by the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce.

With trophies and champagne for the top 3 placed drivers we’re going to be driving all-out for HeadRed’s honour and our own personal glory.

Eager to improve on an ignominious last place from the previous event I’ll be looking for an exponential improvement in my own form. Fortunately for me James can’t even drive having never passed his real test. Surely, given my 11 years of driving experience I couldn’t possibly lose to a complete novice? Hope springs eternal!

To view the full event details click here. I’ll be posting the results of the event in our Halloween edition of the HeadRed newsletter so keep reading!

Everyone’s heard of the flagship social media websites – Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. In today’s society “social media marketing” is an increasingly common method of site promotion and traffic generation.

Many companies use a blog or news feed on their website to interact with their customers and keep them abreast of brand and future developments within their industry.
However, the concept of “micro-blogging” might not be as familiar to you as some of the more commonly accepted social marketing methods.

Pioneer company, Twitter, launched the concept back in 2006 and in the past two years has grown considerably; boasting over 2 million user accounts!

The idea of micro-blogging is focused on the provision of quick, easy, bite-sized information. A Twitter account gives users the facility to “tweet” remotely from any PC or mobile phone and encourages them to submit easy-to-digest micro-blog posts at increasingly regular intervals. Similar to a RSS feed interested parties can subscribe to a company or individual’s Twitter feed and receive real-time updates directly to their system.

The Telegraph, the Guardian and even NASA are all represented on Twitter. In an environment where customer interaction and brand promotion are essential, new mediums like Twitter are leading the way. HeadRed are currently in the process of setting up Twitter functionality for featured client Ajay Ahuja, which we hope will give Ajay an effective and regular dialogue with his customer base.

Whilst the ghostly spectre of the credit crunch has us all reaching for the Tesco value baked beans it seems to be having little or no effect on the level of online advertising spend.

Statistics taken from the IPA’s Bellwether Report show that online ad spend continued to grow above average in the last quarter, accounting for 6% of overall marketing spend – the highest proportion it has ever recorded.

So, as we slip ever closer to a recession it seems that online businesses are far more resilient than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. In times like these more and more companies are looking online to keep their business afloat.

So don’t let the credit crunch eat into your margins; with a strong online presence your profits can still flourish. For an example of the potential available from PPC advertising see the Spaceslide case study.

Half of UK internet users have never clicked on a banner ad, according to recent research. A whopping 50.2% said that banner ads turn them cold, whilst only 6% said they click on banner ads several times a month.

The research revealed more bad news for advertisers as other forms of display advertising were also shunned by internet users. Pop-up ads were found to be even less popular than banner ads. Nearly seven out of ten people (69%) said they had never clicked on a pop-up.

Indeed, experts aren’t surprised by these statistics with many feeling that internet advertising should be more about awareness than direct response. To this end SEO takes on an even greater importance, ensuring visibility of your site above your major competitors.

If direct response advertising is proving so incredibly unpopular then organic optimisation can be seen as a more acceptable, cost-efficient and effective way of reaching your customers.

The time was 4:24pm, the place was Wedgnock Rifle Range, the man was Danny Wade.

Yes, that’s right, our very own PHP Developer extraordinaire was crowned HeadShot Champion 2008 this past Wednesday at the inaugural CWCC Clay Pigeon Shooting Competition hitting a stunning 25 out of 30 clays.

Danny’s sterling effort wins him the admiration of his fellow co-workers, plus a princely sum of £30 from our pockets!

Full leaderboard

• 1st – Danny – 25
• 2nd – Carl – 24
• 3rd – Liam – 21
• 4th – Phil – 20
• 5th – Chris – 19
• 6th – Jim – 17
• 7th – Adrian – 16

Not the best of days at the office for yours truly. It’s going to be a long time until I live this one down!

The UK government is currently considering plans to cut the internet access of people who go online and illegally download music and films. Initial drafts of the plans are suggesting that internet service providers would be required to take action over users accessing pirated material via one of their accounts.

However, the government has been quick to stress that these plans are currently at a very early stage and final proposals are yet to be confirmed. The illegal download market costs music and film companies millions of pounds in lost revenues with an estimated six million people a year downloading files illegally in the UK.

It has been suggested that broadband firms that fail to enforce the rules set out in this proposal could be prosecuted and the details of customers suspected of making illegal downloads made available to the courts. Some of the UK’s biggest internet service providers have been in talks with the entertainment industry over introducing a voluntary scheme for policing pirate activity, but no agreement has yet been reached.

The Internet Service Providers Association feel that the initial plans to use ISPs as something of a “net police force” have not been thought through logically, saying “Internet providers are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope.“

There is no doubt that the illegal downloading industry needs policing, but the main question remains how the government goes about doing it. Watch this space!