7/18/2008 12:21:00 PM VFI Overseasproperty
VFI have the experience to manage major projects as well to construct and manage major developments themselves. VFI are a company that is not afraid muck in and put their money were their mouth is, so it’s true to say that in some instances VFI are a Real Estate Agent, we would point out that when this is the case all our agents and clients are fully informed as all legal documents and contracts clearly demonstrate.
We are only too aware that to buy land in Southern Italy “you need an Italian company”. VFI already owns an Italian company, we are proud of what we have achieved in the region this far and sure there have been hiccups and delays but experience tells us that is always the way with new developments. All we can do is work hard with our clients and partners to keep things moving along.
Through this company VFI has purchased land at auctions through the actual courts of Italy with full build permission already in place.
To give a brief outline of VFI business activity in Southern Italy.
Yes, VFI are Real Estate Company. VFI are also developers. VFI arrange joint venture. VFI arrange capital ventures. In all the above instances all agents and clients are informed, which all contracts will clearly state.
It would be true to ask the question without Harry Fitzsimons and Antonio Velardo’s financial investments in many of the developments in Southern Italy would the developments actually been able to proceed with such progress? I doubt very much.
Look at the posts in ‘In Calabria’
The regions of Calabria and Southern Italy have been demonised and harassed enough, VFI are here to work and do business, we cannot respond on a regional problem.
That is for the Government and the Tourist industry.
I would wish to pose the question why are these individuals so fixated with Mr Harry Fitzsimons developments experience and why do they not contact Harry stating their queries and name so that Harry can answer them personally.
It is not a precondition for any business person, entrepreneur or company to actually be the developer.
Harry Fitzsimons is very very experienced with the proper business acumen to hire in the developers, design teams, builders, etc… Did Richard Branson come from an aviation background capable of building planes?
“Paddy quotes a few others as on the form they talk about Donald Trump etc…” However contrary to comments spotted on the forum Harry Fitzsimons has vast experience as a developer within the construction industry but also in sales, retail, and commercial construction with government and non government bodies.
We shall list some of the developments, constructions and businesses that Harry Fitzsimons and his companies have been involved with.
- Owned the land, created project, build project Shell filling station in Lisburn and also owned and managed the business very successfully.
- Owned the land, created project, build Spar Supermarket, Post office, Butchers, Solicitor office, Hairdresser owned and managed the business Lisburn.
- Owned the land created and built retail commercial centre to include entertainment centre, mortgage company, ladies hair saloon, beauty clinic, hot food franchise, florist, dry cleaners, pharmacy, subways in Lisburn.
- Owned the land created and built project social housing for O.D.H.A. Belfast which handover was presented to Lord Bless C.E.O. D.O.E. Housing Branch.
- Owned the land created “special needs project” for B.I.H. Lisburn
- Built and own office in Belfast for family’s private car hire business with retail outlet store.
- Involved in many businesses from buying to leasing property for entertainment, restaurants, night clubs, etc…
Need we continue? It is obvious that these individuals are using the forum for their own ends creating mischief.
Anyone who actually knows Harry Fitzsimons can tell you that he is a very successful and respected businessman who built many projects in Belfast creating much needed employment and helped many people to open their own business.
He is also well known and respected within the community for his involvement in many local initives with many companies, businesses, groups and organisations which many journalists can testify.
“Paddy get into the local activities, charities, trip to USA, community work etc… Check A/Town news 25 year in business last month”
Once again those individuals hiding behind the forum, if you actually did meet Harry as you say why didn’t you raise these queries with him? He is a very open guy and would be only to willing to answer your queries, or give him a ring. He answers queries every day to all agents, clients, etc…
“Paddy put this in your answer; where appropriate check the form on this”
Lagmore Developments Ltd is only one aspect of Harry Fitzsimons many business ventures he is involved in. Whatever money Lagmore leave in their current working account is their business, whatever land they buy is their business. Everyone in Ireland at present knows this is the wrong time to build as the market has changed and Harry was one of the people who foreseen this happening and decided to concentrate on overseas in new emerging markets where investment gives a better return.
7/14/2008 3:21:00 PMGasta Speed and Accuracy continues to reach Global audience.
- Gasta.com has a traffic rank of: 86,86858 (
7793,845) - Speed: Very Fast (85% of are slower), Time: 1.5econds
- Other sites that link to this site: 18190
- Online Since: 29-Jul-1998
7/14/2008 3:15:00 PMGasta ® international trademark application complete. Murgatroyd and Partners international Law Firm has completed the successful application of the word ‘Gasta’ As the world trademark of Applied Multimedia Innovations. Gasta ® will now be appearing as the legal protection of all Gasta owned domains and websites.
Francis Higgins CEO of AMI says “that he is delighted that this long process is now complete and that Gasta ® is now protected from cyber squatters and trade infringements” AMI has a number of proposals for Gasta music and licensing rights for the new trademark including a fashion label and branding company.
7/14/2008 2:09:00 PM7/10/2008 12:54:00 PM
Purchasing your keywords in InstantAds or SearchMatch on the Gasta and Europasearch network will significantly increase you web presence for the minimum price.
Google has unveiled its first major piece of research to prove search can have a big impact on a company brand . The move could help to drive significantly more brand budget online. The findings, from a pan-European research project commissioned by the search giant, showed coming top of organic listings raised purchase consideration of a brand 4%. It also found exposure to a listing in the top paid position, with no organic listing on the page, increased purchase consideration 20%. The new and (to the tech savvy generation) most important factor in branding your company is to get into search listings and Gasta.com is a really simple and inexpensive way of doing that.
7/9/2008 1:02:00 PMGasta has over 450 Domain names for sale including
www.londonsdockland.com
Domain Advertising Agency Offers £1.5M LondonDocklands.com For Sale! London, May 19, 2008 - Today Domain Advertising Agency(DAA) announces it will broker the potential sale of one the most lucrative Geo Domain Names in the UK and Europe “LondonDocklands.com”. The London Docklands is a vast geographical area and one of the most historical destinations in the city of London. The area of London Docklands also represents many billions in financial trading terms through the most powerful global investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, with thousands of employees, residential and commercial real estate such as Canary Wharf with the tallest skyscrapers in Britain.
Prospective buyers are invited to submit offers by visiting the following url:
http://sales.domainadvertisingagency.com/domains/954/londondocklands.com
Domain Advertising Agency will post the wining bid on the front page of its website http://www.domainadvertisingagency.com when the domain is sold. The price tag of £1.5M is a cinch, considering the average 1 bed apartment price of £500,000 and the average commercial premises runs into several millions of pounds on average. The 2012 London Olympics is also right on the doorstep of London Docklands, and is also likely to drive up real estate prices in the area going forward.
Only two weeks ago, another geo domain name, “Bellvue.com” a vibrant suburb in Seattle, Washington sold for $150,000. Likewise, several geo domain names have sold over the last 18 months such as Branson.com for $1.5M, Buckhead.com an Atlanta suburb for $250,000 and Surrey.com a greater London suburb for $200,000 and WallStreet.com sold for over a million dollars in 1999.
London Docklands which stretches from the historic docks of Wapping , through the massive Canary Wharf financial centre, the Royal Docks and all the way through sought after Greenwich comprises some of the most historic buildings in the United Kingdom, juxtaposed with impressive modern architecture and thousands of impressive contemporary residential apartments for 21st century living. Other major attractions are the Millennium Dome, huge venues such as the Excel conference centre hosting mavericks such as Anthony Robbins, the gleaming Jubilee line tube extension and the busy London City airport, connecting business and leisure flights directly with Europe.
We hope to attract interested buyers such as London City Traders looking for a new venture investment, city property developers, online media consortiums and particularly foreign investors across Europe, Asia the Middle East and North America, looking for a niche opportunity to leverage their presence and investment in London. We certainly notice the significant number of Russian Oligarchs all over London, they are very welcome to submit offers too!
The domain owner, a born and bred Londoner and founder of Domain Advertising Agency.com, as a humble gesture of giving back to the community, will pledge ten percent of the net resulting sale to a charitable organization catering for the welfare of homeless citizens living in London Docklands.
Submitted by: Robert Haastrup-Timmi Find out more. 7/8/2008 5:34:00 PMGasta Search Branding and Direct Response,
We love it when a plan comes together1 The Gasta.com strategy of aquiring and hosting new domains to launch the gasta white label search is gathering momentum as more Brands recognise that Search is the key branding tool of the future web.
http://www.nmapodcast.com/podcast/
In this week's NMA Podcast, Microsoft's senior vice president of strategic partnerships, Yusuf Medhi, talks about the software giant's acquisition plans following the failure of its bid to buy Yahoo!. Plus Winston Binch of US hot-shop Crispon Porter + Bogusky explains how digital agencies are moving up the pecking order, and the NMA team discuss the role of search in brand-building.
Spam experiment overloads inboxes Surfing the web unprotected will leave the average web user with 70 spam messages each day, according to an experiment by security firm McAfee.
It invited 50 people from around the world, including five from the UK, to surf without spam filters.
The experiment revealed that UK residents are most likely to be targeted by the infamous Nigerian e-mails and "adult" spam.
One UK participant received 5,414 spam e-mails during the month-long trial.
But the US still tops the global spam league.
Participants in the US received a total of 23,233 spam e-mails during the course of the experiment compared to 15,856 for the second most spammed country - Brazil.
In the UK, the five participants racked up 11,965 spam messages during the course of the experiment. Germany attracted the least spam, with just 2,331 junk messages.
Real threat
The results show that spam is showing no signs of slowing down, although the opposite can be said of those receiving messages.
"Many of our participants noticed that their computers were slowing down. This means that while they were surfing, unbeknownst to them, websites were installing malware," said Guy Roberts, director of McAfee's labs in Europe.
Some 8% of the total spam received during the experiment was classified as phishing e-mails - messages that pose as a trustworthy source as a way of getting sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and bank account details.
"Spam is most definitely much more than a nuisance; it's a very real and fast-growing threat," said Mr Roberts.
The firm also noticed a shift away from mass spam to more targeted campaigns.
The most popular subject of spam remains financial - pre-approved loans or credit cards
The UK is the most likely country to be targeted by Nigerian spam e-mails, where someone supposedly from Nigeria contacts their target to inform that they are the beneficiary of a will in a bid to extract money from them.
The variety and amount of spam on offer surprised participants according to Dave De Walt, chief executive of McAfee.
"Our participants came from all walks of life, from all over the world and, given their interest to take part in the experiment, they were well aware of the problem. Despite this, they were all shocked by the sheer amount of spam they attracted," he said.
Dealing with it is going to be tricky though, he admitted.
"We can see from the experiment that spam is undeniably linked to cybercrime.
"However, it is such an immense problem and it's never going to go away. It's no longer a question of solving it but one of managing it," said Mr De Walt.
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR SPAM CATEGORIES
Advertisements,Financial,Health and medicine,Adult services,Free stuff,Education,IT related,Money making,Credit cards,Watch adverts,
GLOBAL SPAM LEAGUE
US - 23,233,Brazil - 15,856,Italy - 15,610,Mexico - 12,229,UK - 11,965,Australia - 9,214The Netherlands - 6,378,Spain - 5,419,France - 2,597,Germany - 2,331
Data supplied by McAfee
7/3/2008 3:43:00 PMIt's time to stop complaining about people piggy-backing on your search terms. Use it as an opportunity to hit back, be smarter, more nimble and win, just like Gasta. Why the hell is someone able to advertise on Google using my brand name? Don't I own my brand name, and my product names? The simple answer is no, you don't, especially when it comes to using them in search. For the delusional lawyers that think they do, can I please laugh at you? It's gone. Shattered. You can have your brand terms copyrighted, trademarked and employ a whole team of leaders for their defense, but owning? That control state exists only in lawyers' minds. Yes, you may OWN them, but the reality is you just can't sue everybody, not anymore. Like copyrighted material that makes it onto video sites, it's a losing battle.
So, what you really need to do is look at this as an opportunity, not an obstacle.
The way that Google works, and I'm sure as hell going to get flack if I get this wrong, is that if the name is in the competitive set and it is relevant to the purchase, category, product or topic, you can buy it.
Now, what you cannot do, or are not supposed to do as a competitor to the brand, is use that brand name in the copy of that ad. You can use it in the title due to dynamic replacement, but you are not supposed to -- or it is greatly frowned upon if you do -- use it in the copy of the ad. But the reality? Eh, a lot more murky. There are just way too many advertisers buying terms, and it's that democratization that is fueling a lot of the growth.
Look, if a company is buying your product name, or your brand name, then you are doing something right. Are they riding the coattails of your brand equity? You bet your lazy corporate lemming butt they are. And they will ride it and ride it until you wise-up on how to defend it.
There are a number of companies that insist on not buying their brand names with the belief that "I am already ranked at the top of the organic results, so I don't need to." And that is true for many clients. But not buying your brand name in addition is ludicrous.
Here are three main reasons why you want to do this:
1. Combination punching
Enough research out there has shown us that the combination of having an organic link and a paid listing increases response by somewhere around 25 percent. Now, you could argue that the organic link is free and that paying for an additional 25 percent is not worth it. Wrong! Your competitors are unlikely to be over in the section of organic listings. They are hitting you in the ad space. Occupy that space so they don't own you. 2. The message
It's the one real way that you can exert control -- your message. The copy that is picked up thorough organic listings is much less easily controlled. It is the crawlers that determine it, and your homepage has to be specifically designed for that purpose to make it better. It is also relatively static and does not change over time. That would require new copy on the homepage, new tweaking and a whole new crawl by Google. When will that happen? Who knows. But you can control exactly what copy appears in a paid listing and about your brand. Adapt that copy to what is going on in your company right now. What is relevant today? Do you want everyone to end up on the one page that gets the highest organic listings? Are you sure? Have you just been hit with some bad PR? Thwart it right there and then lead the user directly to your response. Have: "Rumors untrue, company not being acquired" in the search copy.
There are a hell of a lot more people who search on terms than click on ads. Just because they didn't click doesn't mean you can't seed that meme. Press releases are a thing of the past -- a top-down linear cascade that no longer has relevance to today's consumer. Your brand names are your first line of defense in the PR war, so use them wisely.
3. Navigation
Search is not as much about searching and finding anymore as it is about navigation. People use search engines as "navigation engines" to get to where they are going. You look at the most popular queries in search engines -- the real top searches, not the ones that are edited. They are littered with URLs and brand names. It has just become easier to use search engines to type in URLs and company names than worry you'll end up at some domain park by typing one wrong letter. Spellcheck means you'll almost always get to where you want in the next click.
One of my most amusing ad buys at Ask.com was buying the word Yahoo for purchase on Google that led to Ask.com -- a wonderful triad. When running marketing at Ask, we had some significant challenges. It was never about beating Google. We were Google's largest distributor of ad listings in the world. It was a very symbiotic relationship. Frienemies, if you will. It was about getting people to think of us when they think of "search." Just by being there, we spur top-of-mind awareness for our brand. We were just not in people's consideration set. Look, the reason why Google seems lax is because competition in our business moves our whole industry forward, not just those companies that have been sitting on their brand equity like luddites. It was easy in offline -- just throw a bunch of lawyers at them. But online doesn't just mean those companies in your immediate competitive set, it means thousands of smaller shops that can now afford to advertise.
It's time you stopped complaining about people piggy-backing on your terms and started to look at it as an opportunity to hit back. "But they're driving up my costs for those words, and it's unfair!" Since when is life or business fair? Like sucker fish on sharks, start to look at that relationship as symbiotic. Use them and what they say to your advantage. Stop sticking your heads in the sand, get out there, think of how you can leverage and thwart those efforts -- and attack. Be smarter, more nimble.... and win. Or you can just throw lawyers at the problem, stick your head in the sand and watch them rip business away from you.
By
Sean Cummings (nod to Imedia)
7/3/2008 3:40:00 PMPaid Search:Low intensity warfare on Google plains
Agencies aren't practicing what they preach when it comes to using paid search to market their brands, according to Adweek, and while these agencies are sleeping, some of their smaller competitors are using paid search to their advantage.
Buying your brand name would seem logical, but of the 56 agencies assessed by Adweek, only five had sponsored links tied to their names on Google. The others did not have paid search links, but their web pages generally appeared near the top of the search results.
"It's very difficult to recommend certain things to your clients if you're not in the game yourself," said Craig Conrad or Interpublic Group's Campbell-Ewald. "So often we're focused on our client business [that] sometimes it's easy to forget about our own brand."
While brand advertisers are up in arms over Google's lack of enforcement when it comes to piggybacking, it seems that some smaller agencies are actually using the practice themselves. A search for OgilvyInteractive yields a sponsored link for Stein Rogan + Partners, a small New York agency.
"Why not put ourselves out there as a viable alternative?" said Tom Stein, Stein Rogan's CEO. "It's a little bit of counter-marketing."
Orange will kick off a £30m makeover this week? The operator has worked with creative agency Fallon to produce a global integrated campaign which it said is its biggest yet.
The campaign involves advertising around its new "I am..." positioning, along with changes to 120 consumer touch points including its call centres and stores.
The Orange portal will be updated to reflect the changes with more inclusion of user-generated
7/3/2008 3:32:00 PM The UK government has launched a competition to find innovative ways of using the masses of data it collects.
It is hoping to find new uses for public information in the areas of criminal justice, health and education.
The Power of Information Taskforce - headed by cabinet office minister Tom Watson - is offering a £20,000 prize fund for the best ideas.
To help with the task, the government is opening up gigabytes of information from a variety of sources.
This includes mapping information from the Ordnance Survey, medical information from the NHS, neighbourhood statistics from the Office for National Statistics and a carbon calculator from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
None of the data will be personal information, the government is keen to stress.
Mr Watson is hoping to attract a wide range of people from "the technology community we already work with, to hard-core coders to adolescents in their bedroom".
He admits that throwing open public data could be a risk but he believes that it will yield results.
"If someone comes up with a great idea we will make a prototype and then hopefully a fully-fledged piece of technology that will make peoples' lives better," he said.
"I strongly believe in co-design and in the digital age it makes sense to work with citizens to make public service better," he added.
To help inspire ideas the team behind the idea has put dozens of examples of innovative ways of reusing public information on its Taskforce wiki.
These include a website which maps crimes around the UK, the FixMyStreet website, which allows users to alert others to litter, vandalism and graffiti in their local environment, and the prototype RateMyPrison, which invites those who visit friends and families in jail to comment on the experience.
Technology commentator Bill Thompson was one of the first to see the Show Us a Better Way website, which details the competition.
"It's great to see a government department with enough sense to realise that it doesn't have all the good ideas," he said.
"There are terabytes of expensively accumulated information sitting in databases, but it goes unused and unexploited because of restrictive licenses and lack of awareness," he added.
The government will evaluate the ideas over the course of the summer.
6/27/2008 4:55:00 PMTough economic times call for small businesses to get creative. Here is why you should consider implementing a multi-domain strategy for your business.COST. A memorable, highly targeted and keyword-rich domain name, garners free organic search engine traffic. By acquiring a domain name from the secondary domain market, you are spending less money in traffic than by engaging in often costly keyword search buys or print advertising.BRANDING. Acquiring domains related to your products and or services sends a strong and consistent message to your customers and builds brand equity while avoiding customer confusion and lost traffic. For example, a photographer's website would benefit from camera, weddings and portrait themed domains.GLOBAL REACH. Although the "dot com" is the most common extension, you should cast your net wider by getting as many extensions possible, including country code specific extensions. Act locally, think globally!CAPITAL INVESTMENT. Like fine wines, domain names appreciate in value as they get older, thanks to the navigation traffic they acquire from prominent search engine positioning. By acquiring multiple premium domain names you are building a valuable portfolio of assets.Are you ready plan a multiple domain strategy for your business? BuyDomains has the largest inventory of premium domain names — let us help you find one that matches your business needs. Contact domains@buydomains.com. 6/27/2008 3:47:00 PMAs the shadow of a recession looms large, the knock-on effect has seen ad budgets if not slashed then certainly tightened.
This week's
NMA highlighted concerns raised by key figures within the online industry that brands are rethinking their online ad strategies in light of the current economic misery.
However, one area that looks like it will benefit is search - an accountable, proven marketing channel that shows no sign of slowing down.
Almost everyone from the numerous agencies NMA spoke to for this week's front-page story said that search, and indeed affiliate, will see more money pumped in to it as brands look to areas they can pretty much guarantee will work.
But as brands demand results, does that mean that creativity is sucked out of search?
We've seen plenty of moves this year that have given search specialists the chance to show how creative they can be with campaigns.
Reaction to Google's trademarking decision is probably the most high-profile example, with agencies saying that launching brand protection campaigns was now almost as high on the agenda as brand building and acquisition campaigns for some clients.
But will creativity now be put on hold in favour of results? Will clients solely demand ROI, rather than creative thinking?
Similarly, if search becomes the commodity that it's threatening to be and so simply Just Another Media Buy, will that take the excitement out of it?
I doubt it, but I'm sure that there'll be plenty of meetings between marketing directors and search agencies in months to come where the question of creativity versus results will be top of the agenda.
Gasta SEO Services explains that reputation management and SEO go hand-in-hand because it’s all about getting the positive results above the negative ones. They also suggest participating in and leveraging social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and building up the positive picture of your website to downgrade and diminish the negative comments and to help gain positive momentum.