It’s been a beautiful few days, and a busy few months for me. I’ve just moved full-time to sunny Camberwell, London where soon I will be announcing my exciting new ventures (they really are great!). I’ve been working very hard with my super team (yes even on a Saturday) to deliver the goods.

Whilst ‘The Proclaimers – I’m gonna be’ might seem like a great theme tune for the start of this new journey and maybe the start of yours, I thought i’d deliver you some news about what the Scottish twins have been up to in the social media/tech space as my first blog post in a while (sorry about that, i’ve had bloggers block).

With the help of Scottish agency Bluemungus, The Proclaimers have launched an iApp for iPhone/iPad etc that allows us to learn the words and guitar chords to our favourite Proclaimers songs. The application also includes exclusive footage from recent gigs and news that you can of course push out to your Facebook friends.

Here’s to the Proclaimers who I associate with school discos, quite rightly stepping up to the mark and pushing their band through innovative means. 

On the note of bands, especially those not quite as big as the Proclaimers, I come across an interesting little service called Mobile Roadie (www.mobileroadie.com). An easy to use service giving musicians (authors, poets, writers, celebs etc) an instant iPhone app for there fans!

I promise i’ll get the posts going again now i’m settled down in London.

Fifty People One Question is an ongoing social experiment and film series exploring human connections through people and place. The project began in New Orleans in 2008 and has since traveled across the globe, touching millions of viewers. Along the way, the films have captured a small slice of humanity; to discover dreams, losses, reflections, stories and secrets, some shared and some completely unrepeatable.

Their videos grabbed my attention when I was introduced to them by @brapbrapkyle. They are heart warming, beautifully crafted and inspiring.

Here’s the first video I watched (best watched in fullscreen):

You can view the Fifty People One Question website here.

Early next week I turn 21, in turn this week has been one of reflection for me, a chance to look back over my short years in business and what i’ve achieved and what I wish I had knew before.

Business is all about having the drive to take those chances, looking the ‘what ifs’ straight in the eye and aiming to achieve them. I think it’s fair to say I still have so much more to learn, but on the other hand I’ve had some of the best lessons from the best teachers along the way.

To say I started my journey when I was 15 wouldn’t quite be the right thing to say. To begin a journey, I think you have to know where you’re going, have a destination, but when I first sat down at my desk and created PPLparty.com, all I was trying to achieve was a way of being able to talk to my school friends without it getting blocked by the school’s security system. Little did I know (or even comprehend at this point) was that I was about to create a product that would be used by hundreds of thousands of people.

PPLparty.com grew way further just the 30 or so people in my classroom, soon people were telling their friends in different cities and different countries. I began running Google adsense when I read about it on a blog, the minute I placed my first advert code I was earning more than most people do when they are 25.

I started to feel like a businessman, in 2005 this was the year of dragons den. Everyone was glued to the TV in my household watching businesses pitch their ideas to the dragons. I quickly began reading articles on the internet of people making millions of pounds from online businesses, how the dot com bubble exploded and tales of this place called ‘Silicon Valley’.

I set about trying to expand my social network. I started created pitches where our website could partner with other companies. My first port of call was changing advertising network from Google to one that represented the ‘big’ websites. I remember dropping an e-mail to Monetise. A polite man called Joel called me back and asked me to come in and see them. Here I was, a spotty teenager sitting in an office on Poland Street with a huge online advertising agency – talking to them about a website that I had created in my bedroom. I was about 1/100 of the size of most of their clients, but with a smile Joel and Jon agreed to take on my inventory. I felt great! Later last year Monetise was sold to Glam Media, one of the biggest online advertising agencies in the world!

After setting up an office in Nuneaton, where I was currently attending college the next thing I went about looking into was how I could add value for my members, and equally add value back to a partner’s customers.

I found Hotxt in an article (I can’t quite remember where, maybe the Guardian). I loved the idea, it was free text messaging phone to phone using the phone’s data connection. I created a flashy proposal in powerpoint after researching what one looked like. I sent this off to Hotxt and eagerly awaited a response! I’ve include a page from the proposal to the right.

A week or so later David Whitewood got in touch from Hotxt, he was the founder. He invited me to Cambridge to pitch my ideas to his CTO. Little did I know, and quickly found out, the co-founder of his company was Doug Richard. The same Doug Richard who I had been watching eagerly on BBC 2′s Dragon’s Den. I think it’s safe to say they loved my ideas – as a few more days later I was invited to London and offered a job as a product manager. I was the 2nd team member hired into the London office. The firs team member was the CTO: Carl Uminski (ex-director of search at Yahoo) and who founded Overture in the UK (later sold to Yahoo). My experience here set me up for the rest of my life!

I worked along side some of the greatest minds in web, such as product managers, developers and marketing people from Yahoo, eBay, shopping.com, T-mobile, Orange, Microsoft and more! Whilst all this was happening and I was being mentored by the best, PPLparty.com needed a little push as things wern’t growing at the same rate. This is where MySpace was quickly becoming a hot topic in the UK. So with the advise from the guys at Hotxt (which had just been rebranded to Trutap) on my 18th birthday I parted company with those guys and raised £10,000 investment to grow PPLparty into Youmeo. I worked with a very bright guy in the city to put together a team. This deal and my previous history attracted the attention of pretty much every major newspaper in the country. I achieved full pages in the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Observer as well as being mentioned as a Trailblazer by Revolution magazine and awarded the youngest ever Director of the Month Award by the British Institute of Directors.

Next to come: Taking the plunge, my experience with ‘investors’ and starting fresh!

So it’s been over a month since I last posted here, as you might be able to tell things have been *very* busy for me. I’ve moved from being pretty much full-time in the midlands (Coventry) to now living in London for the majority of the week and visiting our offices in Coventry twice a week. This is a great move for my projects, and I have a handful of new ones to announce early next month!

Next week I turn 21, and it marks a significant milestone in my career. Over the last few years I’ve started businesses that have achieved national acclaim, i’ve played poker with investors and won the support of some of the biggest brands in the UK. Now it’s time to get really serious and make my mark!

The ‘trading’ environment has been tricky over the last 12 months, we’ve all tuned into the news and heard the headlines. As you may know, we closed Youmeo down last year, my favourite project, but it just wasn’t generating revenue. We weren’t a victim of the recession, we were a business that wasn’t making money. The “recession” just made us realise it’s about time we bucked up our ideas and worked on real business models!

Although most people still think we’re in this recession, I truly believe we’re experiencing the new normal!

I don’t believe things are going to get any worse than they are now, but I don’t think they’re going to improve too quickly either. This so called recession has meant that the businesses that needed to buck their ideas up – have no choice but to do so, and those that can’t – have disappeared.

In my home town of Coventry there has been talk of the prestigious London taxi building company: LTI – moving their operations to China. Whilst here locally this means job losses, every London cabbie i’ve spoke to has welcomed the news, they’ve spoken of great frustrations with reliability and the fact that LTI have had the market for too long. LTI now also have competition, for the first time a modified Mercedes has been licensed to be treated in the same way as a traditional cab. The recession has forced LTI to rethink their business and hopefully they’ll be able to grab this chance to start producing some great vehicles once again!

So what else has happened so far in 2010?

Apple

Steve Jobs’ last dance at Apple, was announced on 27th January 2010. This was the release of the iPad. The jury still seems to be out, on whether or not it will revolutionise the reading market as it is claimed it should. This year, is marked as the year of the eBook and if it turns out that way then the iPad is sitting on the precipice of being another visionary piece of work by Jobs, if not, he will probably be remembered for its failure.

Going Green

Going green seems to be having a major focus after the Copenhagen Accord was acknowledged. More and more businesses are starting to look at their environmental responsibilities, and the larger than normal costs associated with them. Is the ‘recession’ holding it back somewhat? This could be a welcome change for the future.

Food for thought

The largest European food and beverage deal has taken place and created the world largest confectioner. Kraft’s £11.9bn purchase of Cadburys has caused many concerns about job cuts and product reductions. Hopes of saving the Somerdale plant were shattered when Kraft announced it closure and thus costing 400 jobs. Kraft had mentioned pre purchase that they would try and save the plant, but have now acknowledged that Cadbury’s plans to move to Poland were too advanced. Again this is one that has effected the local economy here in the midlands.

Driving change

The UK automotive industry was warned by KPMG to be wary of 2010 manufacturing prospects even though there was a 64.9% increase in January production figures compared to last years January figures. This marked increase is great news for a beleaguered industry, but 2009 is a very low base. The caution, however, has merit in that they also mentioned that more firms fail coming out of a recession than going into it.

Act quickly, think slowly

The Greek financial crisis has thrown the Eurozone into deep discussions about how it can help the debt laden country without creating a bail-out scheme. The Greek banks have been downgraded by ratings agencies to BBB, and discussion has taken place as to the future effect on the Euro. The Euro’s central bank policy of not doing bail out schemes is good in principal, but interventions of some sort will be required to ensure economic stability for the region and the major trading partners in Europe.

Here’s to the next 3/4 of 2010!

Good luck to everyone in the next quarter of 2010! And if anyone is up for a coffee in London or anywhere else, give me a shout, i’d love to chat!

Facebook will hit $1 Billion in revenue later this year if it continues growing and keep it’s users engaged. As Facebook pages becomes a more popular offering to companies, Facebook has decided to give brands a gentle push to making the most out of it’s super platform. Social networking site Facebook will launch a directory of consultants, called the ‘Preferred Developer Consultant Program’.

The directory is being built to help brands, celebrities or other organisations who are looking for the best resource to begin their journey onto the Facebook platform (pages, apps etc).

Only one UK based company has made the list: iPlatform, but consultants not included can apply to become part of the Preferred Developer Program, they will need to demonstrate they have built engaging Facebook apps or pages.

As soon as this directory launches I’ll try and put together a list of the consultants and their notable work.

You should follow me on Twitter here

Happy new year everybody, and here’s an unexpected treat:

Previously I blogged about the rumored Apple tablet and how it may look.

A friend of mine (@thomasdavies) has just tweeted that Apple will announce new products on January 27th 2010 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

This could be where we get introduced to the Apple tablet amongst other products.

Other similar devises that have launched recently include the Joo Joo (previously the CrunchPad) – which costs around £300 ($500).

I predict the Apple tablet could cost in the range of £750-£1,000 ($1,200-$1,600).

I’ll keep you posted as the news unfolds, in the meantime – please subscribe to my new monthly e-mail newsletter which includes popular and guest posts, research and ebooks. (Link on the right).