That is when Aussie Farmers Direct got its thinking cap on and shepherded a campaign that cut farmers’ losses and won it the marketing innovation award from AUSVEG, the national farm group that last week presented its National Awards for Excellence in Hobart.

Aussie Farmers Direct also won the Best Customer Experience award in the BRW AMPCSC Australian Retailer of the Year Awards.

Aussie Farmers Direct called last year’s crisis sooner than most. A supply glut cause by a bumper season and limited demand in overseas markets, not to mention the strong Australian dollar. With prices so low that didn’t even cover the cost of picking them, the Australian home delivery food group came up a plan to sell the oranges at steep discount — $3 for 3 lbs including delivery.

That campaign helped Australian farmers eventually sell one million more oranges than they sold in 2010, perhaps winning a lot of goodwill from consumers as well.

“Australia grows the best fruit and vegetables in the world, and we’re proud to deliver quality Australian produce to our customers each day,” said Braeden Lord, the chief executive of Aussie Farmers Direct. He said award recognises Aussie Farmers Direct’s commitment to Australian farmers;

The AUSVEG Marketing innovation Award was based on the below criteria:

• Creation of an innovative marketing solution, process or program

• Creation of new market opportunities for vegetables/potato products

• Significant impact on the industry and potential for long-term positive effects through sales, awareness, reach etc.

• Tangible and measurable results

Over the past four years, Aussie Farmers Direct estimates it has delivered more than 20,000 tonnes of Australian fruit & vegetables to urban households. The seven-year-old group has a customer base of 130,000 across the country.

AUSVEG represents the interest of growers to government and assist growers by making sure the National Vegetable Levy and National Potato Levy are invested in research and development that best meets the needs of the industry.

For those who’ve yet to experience running or managing a business, it would be difficult to appreciate just what it takes to launch a new venture or to successfully run a profitable organisation.

The traditional rules of an employee do not apply to business owners; idealistic expectations are replaced with realistic goals and challenges.

Once upon a time…

A number of years ago, aged 19, I decided to launch headfirst into a business venture. I knew nothing about business, nothing about management, and very little about financial planning.

What I had were dreams of business riches, of success at a young age. I would often imagine my life a few years down the track, when I’d head my self-started company, now a national success story. I would drive an expensive sports car and people would recognise me as that young guy who made millions from his first business.

Suffice to say, the realities of business were quite different.

Don’t get me wrong, dreaming is important. We must have goals to strive towards and dreams to keep us going during the tough times. Similarly, we must ensure we also keep check of what’s possible and realistic. As I’ve experienced over the years, reality can be a cruel teacher. However, with the right approach and the right attitude it’s possible to become successful in business.

The highs and lows of business

Having started two companies from nothing, turning ideas into profitable ventures that eventually failed, I have experienced both significant highs and lows.

At times I was on top of the world, at the head of a business with several employees, money was coming in the door and I had commitment from clients.

Then there were moments of anger and frustration, spiralling into depression and self loathing that encroached on my personal life and relationships.

Despite all the crap that goes with running a business, I wouldn’t have it any other way. If you’re determined, persistent and strong willed, business can give you a rush and excitement that compares with the adrenaline of extreme sports. It can give you control of your destiny and set you up financially for life. The key is to be patient, to not rush, and to plan your moves strategically and with intent.

The ‘if onlys’ of business

I often think to myself ‘If only I knew what I know now back when I was 19, my life and ventures would have, most likely, turned out very differently’.

But alas, one cannot turn back time. All you can do from failure is to reflect and learn. And make sure that, next time round, you don’t go down the same path and make the same mistakes.

Failing in business has made me acutely aware of my knowledge and capabilities, and has given me more valuable lessons than a university degree in business ever will.

The harsh reality is that most businesses fail within a few short years of starting up. As such, the first rule I have in business is to embrace failure. You’ll no doubt go through some tough times that will test your commitment, and eventually you’ll be faced with two choices:

1. Get frustrated about the situation, magnifying your failure and causing you to experience significant stress and pressure or;
2. Embrace the situation, use it to fuel your drive to challenge and conquer the problem facing your business.

And you know what? Even if you can’t conquer your problem and the business folds, you will have learnt valuable lessons that will help you succeed in your next venture.

In the words of the wise Buddha: ‘Let failure be a lesson, let suffering be your strength, let love overcome all your barriers’.

Peter Spinda is an entrepreneur and business writer. He runs an online blog at www.realitiesofbusiness.com and teaches others about business principles and skills.

The brand new Australian employer review website is offering a voice and a platform for past and present employees to air their deepest feelings and honest opinions, based on their experiences.

“Prior to WorkplaceFit, employees had no way to preview a workplace and its culture, except from discussions directly with employers and recruiters, who naturally have biased views,” said WorkplaceFit co-founder Keryn Donald, who still works for the Swedish telecom firm Ericsson as a migration specialist.

“People need to know they can talk about their workplace without fear of reprisal, and WorkplaceFit provides this by keeping things anonymous,” she added.

WorkplaceFit is the result of the personal experiences and motivations of its founders — Donald and Fabian Mendes, an IT consultant. Both, separately, discovered in unnamed jobs that the “workplace cultures were not what we had expected, resulting in a frustrating and un-motivating working experience.” This inspired the duo to create an “unbiased information source on Australian companies and workplace culture, to help others avoid the same experience.”

The site, of course, is not intended merely as a forum for rants. Donald expects it to provide anonymous reviews — both good and bad — of Australian companies by former and current employees. You could consider it the equivalent of GlassDoor.com, though this American site focuses quite a bit on salaries.

WorkplaceFit allows employees to rate any company on their benefits, work culture, job security, management and other important issues. Ultimately, the site is intended to be a source for future employees to find out about the current culture and employee benefits at a workplace they may be looking to move to, according to Donald.

This is important, considering the fact that people, typically, change jobs more frequently than in the past.

“Being a part of a labor force that changes employers approximately every two years, we feel transparency regarding workplaces and their cultures is a necessary tool for job seekers,” said Donald, who has previously worked for Rio Tinto and Boeing, among others. “With today’s technology and level of social interaction, the days of whispers over the water cooler are over, and the time to start sharing our workplace experiences, in a safe environment, is here.”

From the employers’ point of view, WorkplaceFit may serve as a good sounding board, helping management understand if they are loved or hated — and why.

And yet last month NSW Trade & Investment named the first four early-stage technology companies due to gain access to international business opportunities whilst being nestled on the incubator’s geeky bosom.

The government department’s Australian Technology Showcase (ATS) program will help 12 entrepreneurs gain a toe-hold in Silicon Valley, subsidising access to co-working space and accommodation at San Francisco’s StartupHouse.

The first four companies to pack their bags are: RecruitLoop, ScriptRock, ZeroMail and Brainworth. Here’s a quick roundup of what they each do for a good time:

RecruitLoop gives employers a better way to recruit online. It features a marketplace with experienced recruiters charging an hourly rate, and a platform for recorded video interviews. With RecruitLoop, employees can save themselves oodles of time, plus up to 80% on recruitment costs.

ScriptRock offers simple, online storage of IT system configuration information… Nope, us neither. But appartently it’s impressive enough to earn them a ticket to the US of A.

ZeroMail is a simple email client with an integrated virtual assistant that builds personalised filters to sort priority emails and separate views for notifications, newsletters, mailing lists, and social media.

Brainworth delivers a personalised school curriculum in a compelling a beautiful game environment.

The four companies’ good fortune coincided with the first anniversary of startup incubator Fishburners, which has provided ideas, skills, support and cooperation to RecruitLoop and ZeroMail, among others.

The founders of Fishburners and StartupHouse have worked together for many years, leading to significant employment and sales growth for fledgling Australian businesses.

RecruitLoop’s StartupHouse adventures

RecruitLoop CEO and co-founder, Michael Overell, said his company stayed with StartupHouse for several weeks during a recent trip to San Francisco.

“We were making connections with potential investors, advisers and business partners.”

“The US will be an important market for RecruitLoop, and we recognise the importance of building relationships early on.”

In addition to Silicon Valley being a hub of startup investment, it offers a rich network of folks with stories of both success and failure.

“We made some fantastic connections, and picked up feedback and advice on what it would take to launch and grow our business in the US.”

“We plan to be back there soon.”

The results of a survey suggest the online shopper is one in a hurry – tearing hurry, perhaps. The most impatient will exit if the web page doesn’t load in 15 seconds. And, believe it or not, that is a huge 44% of all shoppers. After 30 seconds, nearly 70% would give up and if a web page takes more than a minute to load, more than 90% would have walked away — perhaps to a rival shopping site.

“Some of the key sales drivers can be directly attributed back to the technology platforms that power the online store. Online shoppers are impatient,” Mark Randall, country manager of Rackspace Australia and New Zealand. “Carefully selecting a reliable and fast hosting solution, ideally with a Content Delivery Network capability, could mean that an online retailer greatly increases their chances of a successful sale.”

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX), a global IT hosting and cloud computing company, commissioned the survey, conducted by Roy Morgan Research.

The other significant finding of the survey is the low use of smartphones or apps for online shopping. In fact, Australians are about half as likely as Britishers to use an app or a smartphone for online purchases.

“Australians don’t seem to have taken to shopping on their smartphones or using M-commerce apps quite yet, with the vast majority using their PC or laptop for online purchases,” said Randall. “More than 85% of respondents make their online purchases on their home computers.”

Among other findings:

• 90% of Australians connected to the Internet shop online
• Over 90% of shoppers are buying for themselves, rarely buying gifts for others
• 83.2% prefer online shopping for its convenience
• 71.1% prefer online shopping because of potential bargains, and 60.8 % did so because of the ability to compare prices
• Only 47.4% did so for the “wider variety of products and services” available.

“Our survey indicates that online shopping in Australia is going strong and most Australians have and will continue to purchase online in 2012,” said Randall.

But “online retailers that don’t invest in website platforms that allows shoppers to easily browse through products, ensures that prices remain competitive, and deliver an overall convenient shopping experience could quickly lose business,” he added.

From its Australian headquarters, the company currently runs the biggest online outsourcing marketplace in the world.

The increase by 40,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2012 may be a surprise to some, but Freelancer’s chief executive Matt Barrie has an explanation. He says the phenomenon is due to a global rethink by organisations as to how they plan to do business this year.

Freelancer goes through a quarterly exercise of drilling down into the data held in the company’s servers, to pick out key developments and link them to particular economic or business causes.

Which online skills are in demand?

Hot skills for the first three months of 2012 evolved as follows, according to Freelancer.com figures:

• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) rocketed upwards by 303% compared to the previous quarter to a total of 5,150 jobs. Data processing and data entry also showed very strong growth, with increases of 187% to 18,349 jobs, and 111% to 30,837 jobs, respectively.
• Virtual assistant (VA) jobs leapt 144% to 3,205 jobs and customer support jumped 89% to 1,173 jobs
• Web open standards job continued to climb: HTML5 scored a 48% increase to 2,160 jobs and jQuery achieved 2,324 jobs, thanks to a 39% increase.
• Mobile app development jobs saw iPhone as the leader in the category with 4,318 jobs corresponding to a jump of 27%, with Android hot on its heels (2,863 jobs following a 26% increase) and iPad scoring a respectable 19% increase to 1,828 jobs.

There were also losers, both in a relative and an absolute sense. SEO (search engine optimisation) jobs showed comparative stagnation with a single digit increase of 8% (2,160 jobs) compared to the global double-digit growth of 30% averaged across all Freelancer.com job categories. Flash, the proprietary technology from Adobe, showed negative growth at -1%, down to 2,697 jobs.

What’s changing the demand for online skills?

Freelancer’s explanation of these results refers to a number of overall trends:

• Customer organisations want cost-savings in order to remain competitive in the current business climate. Outsourcing via an online marketplace like Freelancer.com gives these companies access to services as needed (such as BPO, VA), instead of having to fund step increases in ongoing payroll expenses.
• Businesses are also looking to reach their own customers via mobile platforms (requiring mobile developers), and both businesses and the currently strong growth sector of mobile device vendors are showing strong preference for open web standards, and even pushing proprietary technologies out (like the lack of support from Apple’s iOS for Flash).
• A law unto itself, Google is also still on the warpath against low-quality website links, unsettling SEO activities of both customers and service providers, and causing demand to slacken accordingly.

If online service providers use this perspective to understand the momentum of the market, as well as any “flavour of the month” skills in demand, they could conceivably leapfrog the rest of the market by readying new skills in advance.

Cloud computing also goes by the name of the cloud, hosted services, utility computing, grid computing, Software as a Service (Saas), Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

With so many super-catchy titles, just what the heck is it? So glad you asked.

Simply put, cloud computing lets users access files and applications over the internet, delivered as a service. That means email minus the server, storage sans server, a server without a server. All you do need is an internet-connected device.

Research firm IDC recently predicted the Australian cloud service sector would be worth more than $2 billion by 2015. Word on the street is 94.2% of companies plan to implement cloud computing services by 2013.

So how do you know which cloud is right for your business and who you can trust?

Own the outcome

As with anything, it’s important to recognise your requirements before seeking a solution. For example:

• Where will I be travelling?
• How much of my stuff do I need to allow capacity for?
• What will it cost?

You can approach the search for the right cloud computing solution in a few different ways:

• Start by ruling out based on cost
• Narrow your options based on features

The problem with cost-focused decision making is that you’re automatically ruling out features that reduce risk factors or could be of use to you.

You may very quickly discover that the initial cheaper option can cost you more in the long run.

Public vs. Private

A lot of small businesses are investing heavily in expensive traditional server technology. Others are devoting considerable time to educating their teams on a range of ever changing ‘public’ cloud computing programs.

While ‘public’ cloud computing programs may be cheaper than conventional server equipment, the risk factor should be weighed-up. It’s not news that data on ‘public’ services, such as Dropbox, Highrise, Batchbook, 37signals, and LastPass, is often compromised. The Sony data breach, Google’s ‘lost’ mailboxes and Dropbox’s ‘let everybody in’ were some of the most widely publicised last year.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that, in addition to the risks ‘public’ services can pose to your business’s security and operations, the mix and match approach of using various free applications can also appear amateurish to prospective employees and clients.

Data sovereignty and why you should care

Today, a massive 35% of Australian enterprises are subscribing to some type of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or PaaS (Platform as a Service) cloud service, with the majority of subscriptions and data heading to overseas providers.

In theory, any business considering cloud computing should understand its responsibilities under legislation including the:

• Electronic Transactions Act 2003, Spam Act 2003
• Cybercrime Act 2001
• Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000
• Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000
• Privacy Act 1988
• Archives Act 1983
• Freedom of Information Act 1982
• Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979

The list goes on… Happy reading!

Now imagine how many laws you’d have to be aware of if your data was stored in a cloud which housed its data offshore. In a worst case scenario, try getting your data back from overseas when this same cloud provider goes out of business.

To reiterate, once data is stored on foreign soil, it immediately becomes governed by local law. That’s why it’s so important to ask the question “Where is the infrastructure located?”

A number of recent cases bring to light the complications of offshore data storage. Reckon, developer of accounting package Quicken, recently severed ties with its American partner Intuit to reduce its users’ exposure to foreign laws. Meanwhile, legitimate users of MegaUpload have had their data locked away from them because servers are now evidence in an international copyright fracas.

Unsurprisingly, organisations are becoming increasingly wary of where data is stored.

The silver lining

It’s not all doom and gloom. Given that Australia’s 2.7 million small businesses make up over a third of the economy and employ almost 5 million Australians, forward-thinking IT solutions for start-ups are being developed and there are services available that marry the best features of cloud computing with the added security and support of an exclusive ‘private’ infrastructure.

And the good news is that they can be cost effective too.

Nik Devidas is a founder of leading IT solutions provider RockIT and is Managing Director of DHM Group. Cloud computing service Datasafe is the realisation of a six year vision to provide a cost effective IT solution for start-up businesses.

This month, it will run two events in partnership with two of Australia’s leading startup hubs — Fishburners in Sydney and York Butter Factory in Melbourne.

The Sydney event is scheduled for 20 May and the Melbourne one is set for 27 May. Cofounder Speed Date is offering a limited number of special discounts for Anthill readers. Use promo code “AHT512″ for Tech Founder tickets; and “AHB512″ for Business Founder tickets.

In March, Cofounder Speed Date ran a similar pair of events in Sydney and Melbourne, in partnership with AngelCube, an early-stage investor.

Cofounder Speed Date founders Ryan Wardell and Navdeep Saini believe their startup has the potential to be as big as StartUp Weekend, which has gained a global reach with its promise of setting up news startups in 54 hours flat.

“We’ve had confirmed matches from every event we’ve run. Nearly all our attendees walk away with at least two or three potential cofounders they want to follow up with. So the structure of the event definitely works,” says Wardell.

“Now we’re just figuring out how to scale it up — and that involves getting other people in other cities to run it. StartUp Weekend has done a great job of that, and we’re considering a similar model,” he adds.

The speed dating proceeds along these lines:

Attendees are split into two equal groups – tech founders (coders) and business founders. Each goes on a series of 8-minute “mini-dates” with 13 potential cofounders and discuss ideas and skills. Of course, people are unlikely to close a “deal” in eight minutes but it is long enough to arrange a follow-up meeting with select potential co-founders.

The secret to the event’s success, Wardell believes, is the emphasis on personal connections, rather than ideas.

“There are a lot of really talented, highly skilled people in the corporate world who hate their job and want to do a startup — they just don’t have any ideas or the right network to make it happen,” he says. “For those people, coming to an event like Cofounder Speed Date, meeting other entrepreneurs who are screaming out for their skills — it’s opening up a whole new world for them.”

As an entrepreneur, you know only too well that legal compliance can make or break a business.

The legal considerations for employees and the terms of their engagement with your company has many legal considerations to consider. If you’re not adhering to these, you are indeed, running a risky business.

Quite simply, you have to be compliant with the legal requirements of human resources, or HR.

And that doesn’t mean following some of the rules some of the time. It needs to start from the moment your organisation interviews a prospective new employee.

Lisa Spiden, director of HR outsourcing firm fibreHR, explained, “Every business should have a well drafted recruitment process to ensure legislative obligations are satisfied. During the interview process, all applicants must be asked the same questions, regardless of sex, age, race, sexual preference or disabilities.”

“This ensures an easier comparison of responses and dictates appointments are made on the basis of competency, skill and experience.”

According to Spiden, companies risk losing the big bucks if they wilfully choose to stay in the dark regarding employee contracts and current Awards.

“Out of date contracts that fail to accurately reflect current work practices cause no problem when everything is going well. However contractual terms that are not clearly defined may end up as a significant cost in legal fees as businesses defend their practices.”

Spiden also warned that failing to comply with current Awards and coverage could see businesses fined a cool $33,000 per employee per breach.

“Not to mention disengaged staff and the issues that come with that,” she added.

“Compliance with the terms and conditions of applicable awards must be adhered to at all times.”

Failing to follow legal compliance to the letter can also damage your brand and, in extreme cases, lead to imprisonment.

Don’t run a risky business. Do it right from the start.

To surmount this problem, Santosh Kulkarni and his team at NICTA have toiled over a rival system, using peer-to-peer networking technology. Their system, called Badumna, uses more of the end-user’s computing and networking power to run the games, virtually eliminating that split-second lag that can take the fun out of the multi-player games.

To commercialise Badumna, NICTA floated a startup called Scalify, its eighth spin-out. This week, Scalify won ringing endorsement for its business plan with a $2 million funding from Melbourne venture capital firm Starfish Ventures.

Beyond gaming

“We always get a great reaction to our product from customers, so we’re thrilled with this opportunity to extend our reach,” said Steve Telburn, Scalify’s CEO. “NICTA has given us top-notch technological and research staff and vital support throughout the early stages of the company’s growth. Without their assistance we would not have been able to grow to a stage required to attract professional investors.”

Badumna could be a great start. Kulkarni’s team has focused on the large gaming market — estimated at $67 billion in 2010. Within gaming it has the potential to dramatically raise the number of online players a game can support, besides providing a far enhanced experience.

“The online games market is large and is growing quickly, but is hindered by the traditional client-server model which is expensive and limits scalability,” said Starfish’s Anthony Glenning, who will join the board of Scalify. “We recognised Scalify’s unique solution for peer to peer games, especially in terms of scalability and reducing traffic to the server.” Glenning founded Tonic Systems, a maker of presentation software that was acquired by Google in 2007.

Outside gaming, NICTA’s technology can be used to improve the delivery of gaming and virtual environments that are increasingly being used for online learning and training. It also can be used for telemedicine programs that involve exchanging large datasets and for bandwidth-intensive data like3D scans and x-rays.

“This is a fantastic result, demonstrating NICTA’s research strength and capacity to form new businesses that can go on to create wealth for Australia,” said NICTA Chief Executive Hugh Durrant-Whyte.

Telburn, who has previously led startups and also worked with Commercialisation Australia, said he would use the venture funding to “increase our sales and marketing capability, as well as expand the number of development platforms supported by Badumna.”

Kulkarni, who developed Badumna at NICTA’s Victoria Research Laboratory, will join Scalify as its chief technology officer. He previously worked at Telstra.

Many business owners start marketing plans with grand ambitions, then quickly lose track of what’s been spent where, with what return (if any).

Here’s a list of marketing faithfuls you should skip for the remainder of 2012:

1. Advertising in the Yellow Pages for the sake of advertising in the Yellow Pages

Instead of letting their fingers do the walking, people have increasingly turned to the web for fast, informative search.

And why not? After all, today’s rich online marketing incorporates testimonials, photos, recommendations, and so on.

It may well be time to reassess your Yellow Pages spend. Determine whether it’s giving you valuable return on investment.

2. Paying to host a website that was last updated in 1990

If you last spruced up your website when dinosaurs roamed the earth, then you’re due some tough love: either fix it or take it down.

If your website’s outdated and looks rubbish via mobile you could be turning potential customers away in droves.

Fix it. Stat.

3. Reprinting stationery (and other old-school branding tools) without considering if they’re *actually* necessary

Do you really need all that stationary when so much of your marketing is (or can be) done online?

If the honest answer is a big, fat ‘No’, it’s time to redirect those funds.

4. Being annoying. Miz-spellings and the like

If you don’t have time to properly check your outgoing promotional materials, should you be sending them at all? Poorly edited newsletters, for example, could be doing more harm than good.

Not only are errors distracting, they can give the impression that your business is careless.

5. Trying to do everything in-house

Countless businesses waste time and money trying to do things in house that an expert could do better and faster.

If social media, online marketing tactics, or even setting up a website isn’t your core business, achieve a higher long-term ROI by engaging a professional.

Smart SMEs know that redirecting time and money to strategies that deliver the goods makes all the difference. Don’t delay: fine tune your marketing activities today.

Jo Macdermott is the chief Marketing Consultant from Next Marketing in Melbourne. Next Marketing is a full serviced Marketing Agency working with small and medium sized businesses.

Is the information on your website convincing potential clients to purchase from you? The solution to converting web-based leads could be a lot easier than you think.

Many websites are weighed down with too much text. For most people, this is information overload. They switch off.

Other sites contain too much industry jargon and terminology. The problem here is that people then don’t understand your message.

Much of the text contained in websites focuses on the features of the product or service, not the benefits. This includes descriptions with generic terms: quality, economical, professional etc. While you want your customers to understand that your product or service is produced with love, care and quality, it’s a claim most customers see as a given, not a point of difference.

Instead of just listing the specification of a product or service as “we use 100mm pipes”, dig a little further and tell the client what the benefit is to them. “We use larger 100mm pipes so your drains can withstand huge storms and you needn’t worry about water damage.” The latter has gained my attention and now I know the benefit of having 100mm pipes.

Sounds simple? Maybe. A professional marketer will help you maximise this advantage.

Most customers just want to know about the benefits. ‘What’s in it for me?’ ‘How will this make my life easier?’ ‘Why is this product better than a competitor’s?’

Here’s six tips to maximise the benefits of your website

1. Treat your website as another member of your sales team. Each day your sales team answer customers’ questions. What are the most common ones they receive? Check that your website answers them.
2. Your text should be punchy, interesting, and speak directly to your customers. It must tell them why they need your product/service and clearly highlight the benefits.
3. Make it even easier for customers to contact you by having a contact link on each page of your website. To maximise its effectiveness, place contact links close to your product/service benefits text.
4. Updated and benefit-focused text will help gain customers interest. However, your website still needs to work hard to get them to contact you. Add an incentive for customers to call. A website promotion will also help you monitor the number of leads generated.
5. Update your website regularly so that existing clients are induced to click and see what’s new.
6. Include your website address on all of your business letterhead, emails and promotional material. Clients aren’t going to visit if they don’t know it exists.

By incorporating the advantages of purchasing your product, offering incentives, and ensuring you’re easily contactable, your website is well on its way to becoming a more effective member of your sales team.

Dean Parker combines 15 years’ marketing experience with a Masters of Marketing degree to help small/medium business owners maximise their profit.

Four P’s Marketing Solutions assists small business with easy and cost effective marketing activities including website text that converts to sales, PR activities, and powerful promotions.

Not that fast. You might be better off thinking through the entire gamut of consequences — most of all the legal ones that could haunt you for years.

First and foremost, be mindful that an application creates legal obligations — not only between you and Apple but also between you and the end user. It’s not enough to merely fulfil the technical and legal requirements imposed by Apple’s app store. You need an effective end user licence agreement to address the legal obligations arising out of your app.

Have app, manage risk

Every app sold, or even given away free, to users contains a risk. It is important to consider the potential issues that might arise from the app you are building. Some applications (e.g. games) will be fairly low risk, while others (e.g. location services) might have more serious consequences.

Consider, for example, an app incorporating third party location services to track business assets and capturing reference data for field work. If the location is incorrectly displayed or if assets being tracked are recorded incorrectly, the end user might suffer a loss of time or money — loss for which you could be held responsible.

Also, if the application used a third party’s information (e.g. Google Maps or Open Street Maps), depending on what and the extent to which it is being used, a provision in the licence agreement might be required to deal with the use of such third party applications.

Apple offers a standard End User License Agreement (EULA) that you can adopt as part of the iPhone development approval process. As license agreements go, the current version covers most of the standard issues.

It is a generally worded document and it does not cater for specific iPhone applications that have their own requirements. Consequently, you need to ensure that your end user licence agreement addresses the potential risks not covered by Apple’s standard agreement.

If your application incorporates third party location services (e.g. Google Maps), your application’s terms of use may need to ensure that users also agree to be bound by Google’s terms of use. This can, perhaps, be done by incorporating pop-up windows in the application with a link attached. You may also need to ensure that copyright and trademark notices remain on the third party’s information displayed in the application.

An additional point you may need to determine is whether you have to keep up-to-date with the third party’s terms of use, which may change over time. For example, an application that uses third party maps may have a limit to the number of daily downloads, which may reduce over time forcing you to subscribe to a premium service allowing greater downloads.

If you do not keep up-to-date with the terms of your use of the third party application, you could find your application in breach of copyright or a third party’s terms of use. It is, though, possible that you can use technology to ensure compliance with regard to downloads or other issues.

In conclusion, businesses need to be aware of the potential risks posed by the development and distribution of an iPhone application or indeed of apps developed for other platforms including Android, Windows or BlackBerry. Properly drafted licence agreements tailored to the particular circumstances of your application will help manage the risks arising out of your application.

Joe Kafrouni is a renowned business lawyer with the firm of Kafrouni Lawyers, based in Brisbane. He frequently provides legal advice on his blog.

One in five logged on to Facebook and checked out what their close friends said about the movie, and an even higher 38% found other ways to do the same, suggesting a clear shift in the dynamics of viral marketing.

The numbers come from Effective Measure, a digital audience profiling company headquartered in Melbourne, and pertain specifically to the sci-fi movie, “The Hunger Games,” which opened in Australia last month.

Effective Measures conducted a FlashPoll during the week of 4-11 April and analysed responses received from Internet users in Australia. Of the respondents, 31% were based in New South Wales; 21% in Queensland; 24 percent in Victoria; 13% in Western Australia; 6% in South Australia, 3% in the Australian Capital Territory and 2% in Tasmania.

The following are the key findings:

• We trust in peers. The opinions of close friends and positive word of mouth impacted 38 percent of respondents, contributing to the movie’s box- office success nationally;
• Women are a bigger disseminator. Over a quarter (26%) recommended and shared their opinion on “The Hunger Games” directly with their peers. A high 83.4% of women respondents talked about the movie on a variety of forums but only 16.6% of the men did the same.
• Facebook is king of social media. Facebook is the preferred social networking site for buzz as much as opinions. A full fifth of the respondents said status messages on Facebook made them “excited” about the movie. Facebook also was the most popular social media for “spreading the word,” with 10 percent saying they posted recommendations and comments about the movie on the site.
• Other social media growing is too. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube still are not everything. A lot of smaller social media players are gaining in traction — 9% of the respondents cited fan forums and other social sites as influential social networking channels that made them excited about the movie.
• Buzz for the future. A majority 58% of the respondents said they had either watched or were planning to watch “The Hunger Games;” and 48% indicated their interest in the second installment of the movie while only 8 percent were unsure and needed further persuading.

Effective Measure, headquartered in Melbourne, is a global player in digital media planning and audience profiling. It provides planning solutions in the emerging markets, bringing best practice online measurement data to premium publishers, platforms, agencies and advertisers. Its products and services also offer insights into the state of the Internet and the ever-growing digital population.

A Norwegian study has concluded that a “Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale” it built “can be used in epidemiological as well as clinical settings.”

The researchers concluded that women, younger users and “anxious and social insecure” people could be at higher risk of Facebook addiction than other people. Correspondingly, ambitious and more organized people might be at lower risk.

“Our research also indicates that women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook,” Cecilie Schou Andreassen, the lead researcher, was quoted as saying in the journal Psychological Reports. She cited the higher risk of the socially insecure on account of their probable discomfort with face-to-face communication.

By a conservative interpretation, people who score three or above on the Facebook Addiction Scale’s six indicators could be deemed Facebook addicts — just as people who score five out of 10 to be labelled pathological gamblers, or those who score three of seven to be deemed substance addicts under broad criteria set by the American Psychiatric Association at the turn of this century.

However, the researchers themselves did not “examine specific cutoff scores for a categorization of problems with Facebook addiction.” It should also be pointed out that so far pathological gambling is the only behavioral addiction that has been assigned the status of a “psychiatric disorder.”

Classic addiction symptoms

Broadly, high scores on the Facebook Addiction Scale were positively related to Neuroticism and Extraversion, and negatively related to Conscientiousness, and correlated with delayed bedtimes and rising times.

Using broadly accepted academic benchmarks for addiction, researchers at the University of Bergen set the following six major criteria to examine Facebook addiction:

• Salience — the activity dominates thinking and behavior;
• Mood modification—the activity modifies/improves mood;
• Tolerance—increasing amounts of the activity are required to achieve previous effects;
• Withdrawal—the occurrence of unpleasant feelings when the activity is discontinued or suddenly reduced;
• Conflict —the activity causes conflicts in relationships, in work/education, and other activities; and
• Relapse—a tendency to revert to earlier patterns of the activity after abstinence or control.

The Bergen study, led by Andreassen of the university’s Department of Psychosocial Science and the Bergen Clinics Foundation, examined a total of 18 factors — three each linked to the above six.

In the study, 423 college students — 227 women and 196 men — with a mean age of 22 years participated. A smaller sample of 153, 118 women and 35 men, participated in a three-week “test-retest” of the Facebook Addiction Scale. The mean age of the retest sample was 21.3 years. The researchers said tests on a broader may be required to validate their findings.

Last month, Andreassen and her team, working together with researchers in Britain, developed the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, which was examined by the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. This study examined the habits of 12,135 Norwegian employees from 25 different industries.

Does this means there is potential for a whole new range of Facebook addiction recovery self-help groups. Run via a Facebook Group, of course.