ma.rcus.co.uk - The Life and Work of Marcus Cent » Professional

About Me

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:20:36 +0000

About Me

A brief history of my professional life – past and present.

iBooking.com

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:50:16 +0000

iBooking.com started life in 2003 as Clearfuse Ltd. Originally launched as a general web agency with a focus on bespoke solutions, the focus soon changed to web application development in the travel and hospitality sector. With the acquisition of the remnants of a small technology company who had developed a booking engine for hotels, the company adopted the ASP [Application Service Provider] model and started developing a range of online booking and ticketing products. With the phasing out of all services outwith online booking and ticketing technology, the company rebranded to become iBooking.com in 2007. Over time, the product range was refined to focus on three specific, but distinct areas.

iBooking Hotel is a booking engine used on the hotel web site, allowing small to medium sized hotels, to deliver real-time, secured online bookings from their own web site. With a customisable front-end, and a powerful back office, the hotel has full control over inventory, rates, booking terms, and a myriad of other features to offer direct online booking to their end customers.

Following the success of the hotel booking model, iBooking.com were commissioned to develop an online booking engine for the theatre market. The product, now called iBooking Boxoffice, allows any theatre, cinema, or event, to control their own ticket sales directly from their web site. Interfacing with popular payment gateways, including Secure Trading and PayPal, the product is a powerful alternative to working with 3rd party online ticketing sites.

In 2006, iBooking were approach by a major provider of European airport coach transfer services. The company needed an online ticketing application customised to the needs of their high frequency coach services from busy European airports. iBooking developed a custom application which later became iBooking Ticket. This Software as a Service platform now provides online ticketing for travel and tourism businesses around the world. Flexible enough to support the needs of scheduled service transport operators, sightseeing companies, and activity providers, iBooking Ticket is a very flexible and powerful solution for a wide range of business types. The system has processed more than 1m bookings since launch and continues to evolve to meet the needs of a growing customer base.

The iBooking business model is based on a pay-for-performance model with customers and resellers paying a simple commission on the total monthly value of transactions processed. At the time of writing [August 2011] the company is finalising a consumer web portal to promote iBooking customers to a global marketplace and to act as a distribution channel to further support bookings generated from the company web site.

Clicksco Group

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:39:56 +0000

Clicksco Group was created in early 2011 to act as a group structure to link DistinctMEDIA, Click.net and Social360.com. All three companies operate in the paid search, shopping comparison, and affiliate marketing industries. As the first, and largest, company in the structure, DistinctMEDIA was created in late 2008 from the merger of shopping comparison specialists, Clickspace, with Dubai based, Forsight Publications.

From small beginnings, the business has grown to become of the largest global providers of paid search leads in both web search and shopping comparison. Now working directly with companies including Yahoo, Pricegrabber, and Valueclick Media, Clickso has a staff of more than 30 people with a head office operation in Dubai, and staff working from several countries around the world. In 2010, we had revenues of more than $60m.

DistinctMEDIA is the hear of the group of companies, operating a network of vertical search, content niche, and shopping comparison web sites in the US, UK, France and Germany, with new markets explored and brought online regularly.

Click.net was formed in 2009, as a syndication business, bringing skills and expertise in paid search to a wider audience. Offering search feeds and search products, from Yahoo and Pricegrabber, the company has grown from a standing start to a multi-million dollar revenue in less than 2 years.

Social360.com is the newest component of the group and aims to build a network of sites around lifestyle niches. Generating and attracting a repeat user base is central to the company aims. Monetisaton is primarily driven from CPA based affiliate partnerships with companies such as Amazon.com, Affiliate Window, Commission Junction, and others.

As Group CEO, I am responsible for strategy, partnerships and operations.

Click.net

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:30:09 +0000

Launched in 2009/10, Click.net was a good domain name looking for a business model. With the experience of DistinctMEDIA in the paid search space, as one of the largest Yahoo traffic partners in the world, a natural extension was to consider the syndication marketplace. Recruiting a proven success story in the form of now CEO, Phil Aspin, the fledgling business got off to a great start. The first 12 months was about focussing on developing a syndication relatinship with Yahoo, developing the reporting platform, and winning over the first customers in the UK market. Now in year 2, the business is profitable, and continuing to grow. The current focus is expanding into new geographic markets and launching new publisher tools.

See http://www.click.net

Restaurantdiary.com

admin — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:10:34 +0000

Restaurantdiary.com was created as an iBooking product in 2004. Spun out as a separate company later that year, the concept was the result of a meeting in a Glasgow City Centre restaurant with experienced restaurant operator, Mike Conyers. Mike was a fan of using technology to improve restaurant performance and marketing and been an early adopter of web-based reservation systems such as Live Bookings. With iBooking having experience in development of online booking applications, a partnership was formed to develop a new Software as a Service application serving the restaurant sector.

At it’s core, the restaurnatdiary.com solution had to tackle one of the industry’s key problems – how to optimise yield while providing an easy to use booking engine that could be used on the restaurant web site as well as in the restaurant to serve walk-in customers and telephone bookings. By working out the algorithms that allow a restaurant to maximise efficient use of it’s available table space, and optimising the flow of customers across each service period, Restaurantdiary.com offered a unique approach to both operational efficiency and restaurant marketing.

Seven years on and Restaurantdiary.com is one of the most fully featured, well proven products in the sector. Restaurants and restaurant chains worldwide are enjoying the benefits of automated real-time bookings, intelligent customer management and profiling, as well as allowing increased profitability through the smart application of table optimisation and yield management. The company has more than 400 installs and continues to grow it’s loyal customer base through direct sales and global reseller network.

From the concept through the earlu years of product development, testing and marketing, I worked alongside Mike to bring an idea to life. The product continues to be enhanced based on customer feedback and evolving technology. Now supported by mobile and tablet applications, Restaurantdiary.com has a bright future in a limitless market. With no commission charges and a flat monthly fee it offers an easy to justify investment proven time and time again by experienced restaurateurs throughout the world.

The company attracted the attention of global daily deals pioneer Groupon in early 2011. A sizeable stake is now owned by Groupon with the two companies working in partnership. I remain a shareholder.

Visit www.restaurantdiary.com

The Domain Game

admin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:38:30 +0000

Although I don’t consider myself a domainer, I do have both a liking for the sector and direct experience dating back to around 1995. This was the year I registered my first domain, although I can’t recall exactly which domain it was! During my first real job prior to starting Marcat in 1997, I had the challenge of connecting a web server to a 64k leased line and trying to figure out how to run my own web and DNS server. At the time, this sort of activity was typically only done using Unix machines, an area far beyond my technical want or capability. In 1996 I signed up for a 3 day “webmaster” course ran by Pipex in London. I had to specifically request access to a Windows NT machine to enable me to try and learn the skills needed to run my own DNS when I returned to the office. It was a tough learning curve but a valuable experience that has been beneficial over the years. Our first UK domains were registerted pre-Nominet, with various domains registered around 1996 for the company and for clients. Some of these early domains included generics like gin.co.uk, donkey.co.uk, know.co.uk and various others. My personal early registrations included theselection.com [which is still in active use to this day]. I had a few run-ins with brand holders in the late 90′s, Notable domain sales or conflicts included;

techinvest.co.uk [sold to the Irish technology tip sheet of the same name]
luckystrike.co.uk [sold for a small fee to the brand holder]
furby.co.uk [I think also sold to the company claiming brand rights]
techmark.co.uk [registered just after we joined Nominet. I heard on breakfast news that this was to the name of a new stock exchange for tech stocks on the London market. I registered it from home at 7.30 in the morning on a Friday. By the Monday I had agreed to sell it for 4000 GBP.]
whiskyshop.co.uk [sold to The Whisky Shop]

In 1998, with Marcat still operating a leased line and DNS server, and with more and more customers coming to use for registration, I created a new business to focus on domains and web hosting. That business was called On the Spot Internet, and is still trading today.

In 2011 I still spend at least part of my day researching domain names for future development or trading. I recently purchased a 6 figure domain in the .com space. Read more about this and find a list of held and active domains here.

Current Domains

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 09:56:36 +0000

A list of the most interesting domains I currently own. Most of these were registered between 1997 and 2005, although a few are more recent.

mob.com
rollerball.co.uk
citron.co.uk
sextherapy.co.uk
malecontraceptive.co.uk
mx5.co.uk
hiundai.co.uk
digicash.co.uk
digitalanimations.com
digitalanimations.co.uk
crazyloans.co.uk
glasgowharbour.co.uk
fairmontpalm.com
pricemoz.com
supplierprices.com
toughbooks.co.uk
scottishbiscuits.com
scottishpaintings.com
thewesthighlandway.com
ayrshireandarran.com
gourmetscotland.com
rejoindre.com
vrgin.co.uk
flashtools.co.uk

If you are interested in any of these domains please contact me – m@rcus.co.uk