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Interesting one. We have a partner called Service Magic whose model I think is to charge the supplier once they have a confirmed client. The user puts in a quote for whatever work/tradesman they want which is then supposed to be sent to 5 different suppliers.

Tradesman sign up for free, but pay an upfront fee once they can see there is a job request relevant to them.

The biggest problem they have is getting suppliers on board, and we tend to hear complaints form time to time about poor quality leads, or no replies from tradesmen when a user submits a job or quote.

Or maybe provide an escrow service if its staged payments? Keep the money in your account and take a small commission for each payment? Releasing payment when the customer is satisfied.

I should imagine you have deep pockets to get this off the ground and get enough suppliers on board, best of luck. Be great if you let us know how you're getting on!

I'm amazed if that's the case, I thought all the councils were potless, and that's why they outsourced bus contracts. Save them the cost of procuring, running and maintaining large fleets. Mind you, nothing would surprise me

See us in the Midlands have the perfect location. Middle of the country, good motorway network (as long as you stay clear of Birmingham). Contrary to popular belief, there is running water and electricity outside of London.

Not quite sure how the M25 or main routes into Londonville can get any more congested than they are during any normal rush hour, so it will be interesting to see how the increased volume of visitors is handled.

I really hope it's a roaring success, it should be great for the country, but I do feel for London based businesses, or associated impact on small businesses.

Also hoping no one lets Boris Johnson (London Mayor) speak during the opening ceremony. If we don't understand him, what will the rest of the planet think?

According to their blurb..

"Klout measures influence online using data from your social networks. Anywhere you have an online presence, you have the opportunity to influence people by creating or sharing content that inspires actions such as likes, retweets, comments and more. The more engagement your posts receive, the more influential you are. Klout uses this information to provide you a Klout Score that measures your overall influence."
Klout | The Standard for Influence

I just see it as a bit of fun, and don't take any of it seriously. Most of the people with a higher Klout score than me aren't even members of Klout!

As a network though, it gets some serious traffic... No doubt everyones details will be sold to some faceless corporation, or it will float for $50 Zillion and be worth tuppence hapenny 5 years later

Looks like that pundit was right on the money! What a mess RBS would have been in if he had said stick your job!

I just hope this witch hunting media hysteria dies down before we end up as an economic backwater, and all the big corporations shut up shop and move to Cambodia

Must admit, agree with Dr Ian on this, it's hard enough marketing one URL, let alone 2. Plus there are debates on how much link juice is actually passed via redirects, with varying opinions.

Personally, I think a lot of us want to think that people will remember us by name, but the reality is, this is brand, and small biz's haven't normally achieved brand recognition. If they have, they don't normally remain small businesses for long.

From our experience, online searches are done by relevance, as we all get more savvy with our searching habits. eg
Plumber Bristol
Roof Repairs Dudley

So having a juicy relevant traffic generating keyword in your url is better in my mind than being called Odd.com because it's short and memorable.

lol

Interesting stuff Linda

seems to be refferrer spam:

"...This is a tactic used by spammers to get webmasters, curious to research their referrers, to visit the desired website. Also referred to as log spam or referrer bombing. It

Just opened a new business account with Lloyds and got a pen and a mousemat Time will tell if they go the extra mile for service...

We tried pens, whistles, badges, hats, umbrellas and all sorts of rubbish years ago. It's expensive, but is ok if you are doing things like trade shows and need some give aways.

But agree with scentral, I'd concentrate on a quality service rather than gimmicks.

Hiya Linda

Just a thought.

Your sites registered as a .com and the server is based in the US, so have you told Google in WMT that it is a UK based site?

Not sure how Bing, Yahoo, Ask etc handle .com/US based sites? Could they be sending you the odd international traffic?

Or are you just talking about email spam?