Welcome Stranger! Eddison-Media is an internet company working in affiliate marketing, www.eddison-media.com was designed to showcase our portfolio of sites and to discuss what’s happening in the wider world of internet marketing, search engine optimization and affiliate marketing. We also blog about the latest web technologies & gadgets that we love to use, if you have any questions about our sites or anything featured on eddison-media.com then click on the comment boxes (you can’t miss ‘em) and ask away.

For the first time ever we are providing a free flash runners list that you can embed on your site. The list of Grand National runners with the latest odds and if you click on the horses name you get summary of it’s chances in the big race. The List is updated in real time by us, just paste the code into your website and we’ll do the rest!

As you can see below we have added to code to our site, it’s really simple to do… Visit the Runner List page, grab the code and then paste it into your sites template, theme or blog. If you’re using Wordpress remember to use the HTML view in your post editor or alternatively you can paste the code directly into your theme files.

However, if you’re not comfortable editing html code you can just visit WidgetBox (click here) and take the easy route to adding the Runners List, you can even include in on your facebook profile and myspace pages.

Along with the list we also provide a fun Grand National random horse picker, no more sticking a pin in the newspaper! The modern way to get your Grand National tips is from Red Rum!

Got get your tip for the 2010 Grand National just click the ‘Click For A National Tip’ button above and Rummy will do the rest!

Last but not least is our Grand National quiz game, how many can you get right?

The sites fit nicely into our stable (pun intended) of racing websites which includes Grand-National.me.uk & Bet-Calculator.co.uk and TheGameHunter racing blog. The site is still being update with new content and will continue to be update all year.

We hope the site provides a useful resource for punters and racing enthusiasts in the UK and Ireland.

DENSO Corporation invented the system to track automobile parts around it’s various factories. QR Codes are basically barcodes that can store lots of data and what makes them unique is that you don’t need a barcode scanner to read them, just a mobile phone with a camera and some free QR reader software.

Already Sony Ericsson is signed up to include free QR and 2D Barcode reader software on it’s phones. The apple iPhone already has a numerous QR reader apps available to download for free on the app store.

OK, so far I can tell you’re not impressed!
Why would anyone want to use this system? Well all I can say is that once you try it, you’ll instantly see it’s real world possibilities. Here’s just a few way to use QR Codes…

Embed Website Addresses In QR Codes
You can embed a website URL into a QR Code because as we know typing URL’s into cell phones can be tedious and mistyping a URL is a common problem. Wouldn’t it be much easier to print a QR Code on a poster or press ad and have the reader snap the code on a camera phone and be directed to the website instantly? Remember not everyone in the world uses the standard English alphabet! QR Codes will overcome language barriers and make visiting websites easier than ever before.

Embed Geotags Into QR Codes
Let’s say that you’re holding a special event or sale and you want to direct people to it, just embed the Geo co-ordinates of the event into a QR Code. Nearly all high end mobile phones now have GPS and google maps as standard (soon even low cost phone will have them) and Embeded QR Code geotags can link directly to google maps on the users phone and let them know where to go. Large shopping malls or stores can use this to guide shoppers. Even tourist boards in major cities can use it to direct visitors to attractions and places of interest.

Send SMS Messages With QR Codes
That’s right, you can even embed SMS messages directly into QR Codes. As a business you might run a special offer or promotion via SMS service and explaining the instructions to customers can often be long winded and confusion can easily arise. Why tell someone to “TEXT ‘OFFER’ to 2654″? Why not just show them a QR Code! I can imagine that QR Codes will soon be flashed up on TV screens to enable people to vote in reality TV shows or to receive a promo code from advertisers.

Basic Information QR Codes
How about using QR Codes to give basic information? Your business card may have your phone number, address and email details buy why not just print a QR code on a business card and link it to a webpage with your full contact details? If you ever change premises or telephone number, just update the website. No more reprinting business cards!

These are just a few of the real world ways to use QR Codes and I’m sure, over time, people will come up with even more innovative ways to use them. Eddison-Media is really excited about technology, so much so that we’ve registered a few QR Code domains already. So far we have qrcodez.com, qr-barcodes.co.uk and qr-code.me.uk. We also plan to run a QR Code promotion in the next few weeks.

If you want to test a QR Code then try this one! It links to one of our websites.

A quick video to show you how fast QR codes work.

You can find out more about QR Codes and 2D Barcodes by following the links below.

Make Your Own QR Codes

QR Code Article On Wikipedia

QR Codes On Mashable

QR Codes On BCC Click

If you need a free QR Code reader for your mobile phone then try these…

Barcode Scanner ~ Android OS

QuickMark QR Reader ~ Various Phones Including: Nokia, HTC, Samsung, iPhone

Unfortunately not all Affiliate networks are as generous as Market Ace, so this year I’m going to keep a running list of the gifts we get as Christmas presents. Last year was a real mix of the good, bad and ugly and then there are the Networks that just don’t bother sending anything. I’m not going to mention names but…it starts with Trade and ends in Doubler. As a rough estimate I think our sites have generated over half a million in sales at TradeDoubler over the last four years, god knows how much you need to generate to get a Christmas present outta them, and they wonder why I’d rather promote Jackpot Joy with Market Ace!

I know that it’s not good form to moan about Christmas presents you receive, but if some networks insist on playing Scrooge, then I’m playing the spoilt brat!

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…

Chocolates From St Minver ~ Not Bad, Not Bad

Chocolates From St. Minver:
Top marks for St Minver being the first present down the chimney! To be honest we don’t send St Minver lots of players so I wouldn’t really expect anything from them anyway! There more like a distant cousin you’ve only ever met once and then bump into on Christmas day.

To be fair to St Minver the box of chocolates look good and it’s presented like a traditional advent calendar, chocolates are always a winner in my book! The box also has a promo code on for Affiliates which is actually good marketing. St Minver are a network that promote mainly bingo sites like Butlins Bingo and Littlewoods Bingo, you can check them out here. So this year is already off to a pretty good start, lets see what tomorrow brings!

So Christmas is well and truly over and the new year is here, so what did Santa bring? Not a lot actually, apart from Paddy Power and Market Ace who sent us some lovely gifts (Thanks Guys).

It seems the credit crunch is hitting the gambling sector after all, I didn’t even get a card from most of our partners!

The new Game Hunter incorporates lots of usability enhancements which easily allow us to add new offers and merchants. The additional of rotating banners means we can feature more merchants than ever before, we can even change the frequency that individual banners display. Casino, Poker, Bingo and Scratch Card reviews are now separated from guides and news.

The redesign also gave us the opportunity to prune some content and reviews, we have reformatted the popular guides into a search-able database and added a tagging system which allows visitors to quickly drill down to the most relevant sections of the site for them.

The site is still a work in progress, over the coming weeks and months we will be replacing the static screen shots of the casinos and games with our own generated video content, which will feel will be more beneficial and informative for the visitors.

As you can see the new Game Hunter is based on a series of sketches I made over the last few weeks. I’m very happy with the final result which was traced from the original sketches with Adobe Fireworks vector tools. I was never completely happy with the old cartoon but never had enough free time to revisit the design.

A new Cornelius is just the first phase of a massive overhaul for www.TheGameHunter.co.uk, in the next few weeks the site will begin to migrate to the new template and format. The original concept of The Game Hunter will remain, but expect to see plenty of web 2.0 elements creeping into the next few weeks.

If you’re looking for inspirational ideas for your business cards then check out 100 really creative business cards at www.webdesignerdepot.com. I was please to see it featured a couple of transparent cards, phew! at last we’re cool.

Sections on the new site include bookmakers, horses, betting and a brief history of the race, once the 2010 Grand National is over we will freeze the site and add a detailed account of the race, winners and losers. The site can then be used as a historical snap shot that years race.

For small and medium sized affiliates these studies are just too expensive, until now. Crazy Egg is a new online usability tool that allows you to track visitor interaction with your website. You can use it to test a new design, test content and discover which versions work best, test placement of key elements such as ads or action buttons. See where you visitors click via heatmaps, follow the visitor journey via page paths. You can also view bounce rates on individual pages, view referring URLs and track visitor via referring URL.

So how much does this all cost? that’s the good news, it’s only $9 (£5) a month! Join for one month and cancel if you like, test multiple sites or just test your homepage. We ran Crazy Egg on a number of our websites and discovered lots of ways to improve them. So if you serious about making it in affiliate marking, give Crazy Egg a go.