Hi guys!

In July Visit Greece launched a competition on WAYN to ‘win a trip for two’ to Rhodes.

We had an incredible response from members with over 11,400 taking part with a total of over 7,700 correct answers.

We caught up with Laura Baggott the lucky winner before she jetted off to Rhodes:

WAYN: You won an amazing trip for two to Rhodes, hosted on WAYN and sponsored by the Greek National Tourism Organization. How did it happen?

Laura Baggott : I simply answered an easy question on the Visit Greece page and voila…I won a holiday. No gimmicks at all. WAYN is 100% genuine and thank you, I shall enjoy my prize indeed!

WAYN: Who are you planning to take with you?

LB: One of my girlfriends

WAYN: Have you been to Greece before?

LB: No

WAYN: What is the most interesting thing that you learned about Greece from the Visit Greece profile on WAYN?

LB: Finding out there are actually 2,000 islands (although only 227 inhabited) was truly amazing, as well as learning Greece has over 16,000km of coastline. Now I can’t wait for my holiday and being able to explore the ancient sites and beautiful scenery. I shall definitely be taking my camera!

WAYN: What is your plan for the trip?

LB: Exploring a few historical and archaeological sites and sitting in some much needed sun too!

WAYN: What can’t you travel without?

LB: My iPad!

WAYN: Would you say that WAYN helps you realize your dreams?

LB: Definitely…..Great people, great ideas and great competitions too!
I’ve been a member on WAYN for a long while now and have made many friends from around the globe as well as locating old ones too. WAYN is also a great site for hearing people’s views (and ‘hints and tips’) on various holiday destinations, it really has something for everyone/all ages. If you are not a member yet, you should be!

WAYN: WAYN Team would like to wish you an amazing time and we look forward to your post-trip stories and holiday pictures once you’re back!

LB: Thank you! Greece, here I come!

Keep an eye on WAYN for more competitions and it could be you embarking on an amazing adventure!

Best wishes,
WAYN Team

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Hi guys,

2012 has been a monumental year for us, so it gives us great pleasure to announce that we have once again been nominated for Metrixlab’s Website of the Year Awards!

We could never have done this without the loyal support of our members, and we hope you will show it again by voting for WAYN in the category of Communities & Social Networks.

Voting is open now until 9 November 2012, and by voting, you also get the chance to win some great prizes including a Nixon CoolPix camera, iPad and a Samsung 3D TV.

So cast your vote here and keep your fingers crossed!

With best wishes, 

Peter and Jerome

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There is much excitement in the office today as the Szczecin office holds its very own Hackathon.

The term Hackathon describes an event where members of a company – not only the developers, but anyone who has a tiniest idea of how to improve a site – get together and brainstorm ideas that will result in new features for a website or programme. We are hoping that the Hackathon will serve the foundation for some great ideas from all members of staff, not just developers! It has certainly got everyone’s creative juices flowing and is providing a great forum for ideas. Those clever people in the Szczecin office are throwing around their ideas as we speak, developing them together, to produce exciting new things for WAYN.com.

A Hackathon is a is a great way to bring and try(!) new ideas from people who normally just implement things coming from other people.

As you can imagine, the talented and creative bunch in the Szczecin office have come up with some wonderful ideas that will bring new and exciting things to the WAYN community.

The ideas generated from the Hackathon may well be put into practice over the coming months so keep your eyes peeled!

If you have any ideas of your own then please do let us know – we’re always keen to hear from our members

Best wishes,

The WAYN team

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Hi guys,

I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about Take Heart India http://www.takeheartindia.org/about.htm, a fantastic and inspiring youth run charity focused on practical education projects in India.

The annual Take Heart Ball was held on Thursday evening at Kensington Roof Gardens which WAYN, along with a number of other companies, sponsored. The event was a huge success with the organisers estimating the night raised around £30,000 with 100% of proceeds going towards vocational education and training projects for blind and handicapped people in rural India.

The charity lives by the motto ‘Work builds, charity destroys’, rather than giving money they aim to empower people through practical education. The charity means a lot to both myself and Jerome, and in order to continue doing their amazing work, they need your support.

You can make a difference by donating here: http://www.justgiving.com/thi/donate  and there is still the opportunity to donate for the following remaining prizes from Thursday’s ball:

1. Luxury 2 night stay at the Bermondsey Square Hotel including dinner one evening, value £500

2. State of the art intralase wavefront lasik laser eye surgery treatment for both eyes with full after care, value £4,000

3. Jig Watch, value £2000

4. Soft Goat Cashmere Garment, value £150

To find out more about the remarkable projects the charity is working on please visit the website for more information: http://www.takeheartindia.org/projects.htm

All the best,

Pete

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SIME London, Royal Institution, 28th September 2012

Last Friday Pete and I attended the morning session of SIME London, the conference was co-hosted by Ericsson’s CEO Hans Vestberg and internet entrepreneur and SIME founder Ola Ahlvarsson. The aim of the conference was to explore the boundaries of the evolving digital society. The agenda was jam packed with high profile speakers including Hans Vestberg, CEO Ericsson, Mark Read CEO of WPP, Brent Hoberman, Co-founder of Lastinute.com as well as new stars in the making, Hjalmar Winbladh, Founder of Wrapp and Rebtel and Colin Cragg, CEO Starstable.com/World of Horsecraft.

What I really enjoyed about SIME is that it offered a mix of presentations, networking opportunities and workshops. The high calibre and diversity of fellow attendees from around the world was notable and meant there were some fascinating insights into the industry and how the digital landscape is changing.

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg delivered a passionate keynote speech which outlined the way digital technologies are bringing together a ‘networked society’, he showed the following video Ericsson Networked Society which demonstrates how quickly times are changing due to our ability to connect so quickly with people and devices. Vestberg argued that the Networked Society is already a reality which in turn opens up opportunities for people, businesses and society in general:

“Society will be changed by the networked society, with all this connectivity and broadband, to tackle some of the challenges we have….Everything from education, healthcare, even CO2 emission. But it’s going to take many more partners than before. So far we have been very much vendors and operators doing all this. Now we need innovators, developers, handset manufacturers. We need to think any industry from the bottom up.”

He also spoke about how broadband, mobility and the cloud will become the core infrastructures in which all other activities in society will operate under, and astonishingly this is only the start as he argued that change will never be as slow as it is today.

Vestberg highlighted some mind-blowing stats during his keynote speech:

- 1 billion people have mobile and broadband access and by 2017 people will use 15 times more

- 100 years to connect 1billion places, 25 years to connect 5 billion people

- 50% of the world’s population will be covered by 4G by 2017

- 9 billion mobile subscriptions by 2017

- 50% of the SIME audience would rather cut their pinkie finger than their smartphone!

It was overwhelming to hear how quickly the world is changing and that the change has, in large part, been powered by digital communication. Vestberg made it clear that future innovation in the digital landscape will continue, which in turn brings the world closer together and therefore creating new challenges and opportunities. It is certainly an exciting time to be involved in the tech scene, and SIME reminds us how important these events are in allowing some of the top entrepreneurs in the world to showcase their companies, opinions and ideas.

In many ways WAYN can be described as a microcosm of a networked society, the platform encourages members to meet, share ideas and discover new experiences. With the advent of mobile apps user activity will only increase as more and more users connect on-the-go. WAYN has over 20 million members worldwide and such a large user base opens the door to behavioural analytics and allows analysis and interpretation of user engagements. This is an exciting prospect and one which will undoubtedly have an effect on the development of the site over the coming years.

This post has been written by Becky Starr, PR Manager at WAYN.

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